


Neon Pink Motorcycle

by goldheart



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, And then some ;), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, DJ Otabek Altin, Depression, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Multi, OtaYuri Week, OtaYuri Week 2017, Past Child Abuse, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Welp this ran away from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-09-27 02:41:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 74,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9946940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldheart/pseuds/goldheart
Summary: There are certain moments in Yuri Plisetsky’s life that he likes to forget happened at all. The time they were chased from the apartment, the landlord angrily spitting and waving threateningly at them when his mother couldn’t produce enough money for rent.Babushka’sfuneral. The first time he fell in competition.He cannot forget that, under the black band he wears around his wrist like a shield, his soulmark may as well be nonexistent.





	1. Ghost White

**Author's Note:**

> By Worlds in this timeline, Otabek is 18 and Yuri is 16. Just. If you need clarification :3
> 
> For Otayuri Week, Prompt 7: Soulmates. However, since I’d been writing this throughout the week, it also includes, of a sort, a little bit of almost all of them: Day 1’s First Times/Confessions, Day 2’s Celebrations, Day 3’s Future, Day 4’s Long Distance, Day 5’s Fears. 
> 
> Huge thanks to [ModernArt2012](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernArt2012), [vibidi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibidi), [unnaturalalien](https://unnaturalalien.tumblr.com), and [cherri-pvris](https://cherri-pvris.tumblr.com) for beta'ing and helping me get my thoughts in order, and thanks to commentor futbolka for help with Russian naming convention. I very much appreciate it :)
> 
> 8/27/18: Small edits made to names and one transliteration changed. If you read the fic before, you shouldn't really notice much of a difference, but I thought I'd let you know it's there.

PART ONE: BEFORE

* * *

* * *

 There are certain moments in Yuri Plisetsky’s life that he likes to forget happened at all. The time they were chased from the flat, the landlord angrily spitting and waving threateningly at them when his mother couldn’t produce enough money for rent. _Babushka’s_ funeral. The first time he fell in competition.

Those are things he can easily forget. If he looks at himself in the mirror and scowls hard enough, there is absolutely no trace of those memories on him. No one would be able to tell by a glance.

He cannot forget that, under the black band he wears around his wrist like a shield—black for mourning, black for death—his soulmark may as well be nonexistent.

He’s seen other people’s. They’re certainly no point of shame. _Mama's_ was often an abstract swirl, painted angry red and purple like a bruise on her forearm. _Dedushka’s_ had melted across the rainbow with emotion on the back of his hand until _Babushka_ died; now he wears a glove over it to respectfully hide the black beneath. Yakov’s is dark green with bitterness, gold with determination.

Sometimes he catches Viktor Nikiforov gazing lovingly at the curlicues on the inside of his bicep, his sleeve pushed up to admire the ever-shifting colours. Yuri has seen it enough to know that Viktor’s soulmate is a very emotional person, shifting from childish, orange enthusiasm to greyish-blue anxiety in a flash. Yuri has seen every colour imaginable on Viktor’s arm. Angrily, he hits the boards to startle Viktor out of his reverie. ‘Disgusting,’ he snarls. ‘Get over yourself.’

He doesn’t mean it. He never means it. Viktor, long ago, learned when to take Yuri’s insults at face value and when to interpret them as what Yuri actually meant, which was _stop doing that in front of me, there’s no need to rub it the fuck in._ At least, that’s what Yuri hopes Viktor understand when he snaps at him. It gets him to stop, which he supposes is enough.

Viktor knows. Yuri, caught in a moment of vulnerability under his idol’s laughing eyes and insensitive criticism, still clinging to Viktor’s first words of encouragement, told him the truth when they were alone in the locker room and Yuri had yet to skate a practice run without wanting to turn his triples into quads. Viktor knows, which maybe makes the mooning about ten times worse when Yuri catches him at it. Yuri thinks it must be like a drug to him. Viktor is addicted to love, to a person he has never met before in his life. It’s pathetic, really. (It isn’t.) He’s trying, at least, and Yuri knows he should appreciate the effort, but he’s angry. He’s _jealous._

It means that sometimes, when Yuri stays after Yakov has dismissed them for the day and everyone else has gotten off the ice, Viktor will hover by the boards and wordlessly take Yuri’s wristband from him so he can skate his frustration out on his own. The scars do not define him. This does.

‘Higher, Yuri,’ Viktor calls. Yuri swears at him but adjusts anyways, and his quad salchow is _perfect._

* * *

 Yuri finds Katsuki Yuuri sobbing in a bathroom stall and he is furious _._

This idiot wants to waste all of his time crying instead of getting better? Screw him. Yuri had almost admired him, watching his determination as he had picked himself off of the ice and soldiered on. But now, hearing him weep about it? Fucking pathetic. (It’s not. Yuri has done it before over different things, but like hell he’s ever admitting it.)

Yuri kicks his door in frustration. They say that about heroes: Meeting them in real life and finding out they’re human? Worst thing in the world. He had a crisis when he got good enough to share a rink with Viktor Nikiforov and found out that his idol was literally the most annoying person in the world, curled up with that stupid soulmark. He bets Katsuki’s no different, looking at him now. Yuri glares. Does Katsuki wonder if his soulmate knows who he is? If he would be disappointed with all of his failures, or supportive all the way through?

Yuri jabs a finger into Katsuki’s face. His sleeve falls a little, baring the band. Yuri tells himself that he doesn't care that Katsuki’s eyes drift to it and linger as the young man trembles.

‘We don't need two Yuris in the same bracket,’ Yuri says, lacing his voice with enough venom that he hopes Katsuki will understand. _Prove you’re not the kind of person I always beat._ ‘Incompetents like you should just retire already.’ _I know you can do better._

He doesn't think Katsuki understands. Not with that shocked look Yuri leaves on his face as he stalks off.

But no one really does, do they? ‘Your free program could use more-’

Yuri balls up his fists, tilts his head back in annoyance. ‘I won, so who cares?’

Yes. Who cares? Does Viktor think that all he cares about is the skating itself? Pah. And he thought that moron might actually get him. He tugs his sleeve down.

* * *

 Katsuki Yuuri’s soulmark is on his chest, right above his heart, because of course it is. Yuri knows this because no one decided to stop the depressed skater from drinking after his fourth glass of champagne, let alone his _sixteenth_ , how has he not died? And after that humiliating dance-off, Katsuki had started shedding clothing, and oh my god where did the stripper pole come from, oh my god is Christophe Giacometti naked too, oh my god he’s going to have to scrub his eyes out with bleach.

Yuri watches the oddly familiar mark on Katsuki’s chest shift in shades of yellow and silver and pink: Curiosity. Intrigue. Interest. Yuri may or may not have snapped a couple of pictures. For reasons. Then someone—the moron’s coach, probably—manages to get Katsuki back into a shirt before the Japanese skater squirms away, gets his tie around his head, and drunkenly begs Viktor for a dance-off.

Yuri is half outraged by the brazen request until he sees Viktor’s eyes have widened considerably. Then a slight blush spreads across his cheeks, like he _doesn’t have a soulmate to think about,_ the ungrateful bastard, and Yuri’s fury consumes him completely in a wash of red. He wishes someone would give him a damned drink, who cares if he’s fourteen, because if not he might just throw up into a planter and then throw himself off of the building without a good excuse other than _this is fucking disgusting, Jesus._  Instead, at Yakov’s scandalised and angry expression, Yuri stays put, seething in the corner as he watches the pair dance.

Whatever. Whatever. It doesn't fucking matter.

* * *

 Except it does, because he sees Viktor in a t-shirt when he shrugs off his runner to change into his Team Russia Olympic jacket, the cocky shit, and Yuri’s eyes skim over the mark on his arm and he _knows._

‘I bet you’re ecstatic,’ Yuri says venomously. ‘I swear to god, if you get even _grosser,_ I’ll kick you across the damned rink.’

Viktor blinks slowly at him before he smiles in comprehension. ‘I gave him my number, but he was rather drunk, wasn’t he? I can’t believe I didn’t recognise him earlier. He’s very hard to forget.’ Viktor sighs like a lovesick princess and Yuri gags pointedly.

‘Has he called you yet?’ Yuri asks in spite of himself. Viktor shakes his head and pulls his jacket on, sliding it over the mark painted dark blue with… what, disappointment? Yuri catches himself staring and looks away with a scowl.

‘No. But I’m not worried.’ Viktor smiles at nothing. ‘These kind of things tend to work out in the end.’

Yuri huffs and pushes off from the boards. ‘You can’t tell me that, old man.’

‘I mean it.’ Viktor gives him a pointed look and leans back to watch him skate. Yuri gets the feeling he isn’t talking about himself and Katsuki, anymore.

* * *

 Sometimes, Yuri curls up on top of his sheets in the dark with the lights of cars in the street flashing through the slits in his blinds, dowsing the grey of his room in brief washes of colour. Sometimes Potya curls up on his chest or swipes his fluffy tail along Yuri's arm. Sometimes, the streets are completely dead, and sometimes the cat has amused himself with rolling around under the bed. Whatever. That’s not the point.

The point is that sometimes he finds himself on his back in the darkness, tracing over the places on the uneven surfaces where he thinks the edges of the mark should be. Everything looks the same when he can’t see anything at all, and this way, he can trick himself into seeing the curls and the squiggly edges, the shift of his forever unknown soulmate’s emotions lovingly traced over his wrist. When he can’t see the faded scars, he can easily ignore how they feel different from the rest of his skin. This is easy.

He wonders what they’re feeling. He can imagine their joy bursting across his skin in bright yellow, their pride blooming in streaks of silver. How often would they make the mark dip into sorrowful blue, to frustrated purple? Do they see the burning red of Yuri’s anger and think of him? Do they do what Viktor does and constantly sneak glances at it, like some precious gift? Do they wear it like a medal or a scar?

The fantasy drifts away eventually, the way the pain had slowly dulled to numbness after his father had fled with his bloodstained hands and they’d taken Yuri to the hospital. There’s nothing we can do, they’d told him as he’d stared at the bloody bandages. We’re terribly sorry.

On nights like these, he carries the last of the rainbow colours on the insides of his eyelids and allows the skating to come second to his bitterness. He wonders how dark and sickly the green looks in his soulmate’s mark.

* * *

 Yuri watches Viktor’s eager smiles lose their genuine edge. The champion skater seems to forget a lot more these days, leaving things behind him for the rest of them to pick up like beggars or not showing up to lunches meant for the four of them––Viktor, Yuri, Mila, and Georgi––to trade gossip and stories beyond the rink. Yuri, who constantly chucks Viktor’s forgotten skate guards at the back of his aloof head, who has only been a welcome member of their little group for a few months, knows that something is wrong. It pisses him off. He tries to convey this to Viktor with carefully chosen jabs at his age, his perfectly full head of hair, and his rabid fanbase of women desperately hoping Russia’s most eligible bachelor has their adoration swirling in glittering fuchsia on his arm. They slide off of Viktor like oil. Everything does.

If anything, whatever’s bothering him (Whomever. Yuri knows. He wouldn't dare say it) has only made Viktor more focused on his skating. Gold medal easily secured in the junior division again, Yuri watches Viktor skate a technically perfect routine at Worlds. Viktor walks out with another gold, too, but though his smile is wide and grateful, his eyes are devoid of anything at all.

Mila hangs off of him to watch Viktor loop the rink in lazy circles once competition season has ended. There’s nothing there. Their eyes follow him around the perimeter until he scrapes to a stop at the gate and walks right past them without so much as a glance. He’s on another level, now. He has always been on another level. That's what he wants them to think.

Yuri shoves Mila off of him and narrowly dodges her attempt to lift him up in retaliation by gliding onto the ice, tracing Viktor’s steps until he’s zipping around the ice, gaining speed for his jump. Pathetic. Letting that stupid mark get to him? Dumping all of his hope into a soulmate so drunk he couldn't walk straight when the night finally ended? Has Viktor Nikiforov been reduced to his aching heart? _That’s bull._

Yuri snarls and jumps. He trips on the landing of his quad Salchow and creates a magnificently large bruise all the way up his thigh when he crashes into the ice. Fuck it. He gets up and does it again, again and again and again until he gets the damned thing right. He’ll never let it weigh him down on the ice. He will be better than Viktor. He was always meant to be better than Viktor. Everything else is secondary.

He’ll ask Viktor for his short program in the morning.

* * *

 Yuri wonders if Katsuki purposely wears his clothes zipped all the way up to his neck. Does he think if he does that, they won't remember what it looks like?

His version of Viktor’s free skate is a little rough around the edges, a little flawed in execution and finesse, but something about it makes Yuri watch it to the end. Katsuki’s clearly gained a little weight from not being in competition, but that doesn't stop him from skating Viktor’s routine with riveting emotion and technical ability. Yuri tries to reconcile this with the Katsuki Yuuri he watched flub all of his major jumps at the Grand Prix Final and cannot understand it, especially when Katsuki moves into Viktor’s step sequence and _does it better._

‘Oi, Viktor, have you seen-’ Yuri turns to find Viktor on the rink, but he’s not there.

* * *

 He reconciles himself with the fact that Viktor is gone by the fifth day of impatiently waiting for him to show up in a blaze of drama and glory. That sinking feeling in his stomach ratchets up in intensity until Yuri thinks he might burst from the disappointment and anger that courses through his veins like gasoline. His whole future hinges on his performance this year. Viktor knows that, so where the hell is he?

He has to find out about Katsuki through the damned media, not Viktor. That _asshole._

The humiliation drives Yuri around in fierce bursts of emotion. Never mind that Viktor had probably interpreted that stupid routine as a mating ritual or what the fuck ever. Was the tentative trust Yuri had placed in Viktor pointless? Had he allowed Viktor to know about his injury, to let him in on that fiercely guarded secret, for no reason at all? Is Yuri worth so little in his eyes that Viktor would drop him, who would willingly carry his legacy above and beyond where Viktor left it, like a sack of moulding potatoes? That’s the worst sting of it: Viktor, who knows that Yuri will never find his soulmate, who _knows_ that Yuri pours himself into his skating because he will never have that emotional connection, dropped him on the whim of colours on his arm and a man he met once—once!—and who never bothered to call.

It probably isn’t the most rational thing to do, booking a ticket to Japan without telling anyone where he’s going, but Yuri has never been one to think things through when he’s angry, and he’s _always_ angry. Shit like this is why.

* * *

 It very quickly becomes apparent that Katsudon really _doesn't_ know that Viktor is his soulmate, and the other idiot is too obtuse to just fucking tell him, for god’s sake. That’s not the issue. They’re both the stupidest people Yuri has ever met, and while it may or may not be a little endearing, any thoughts of fondness are quickly overshadowed by the confirmation that yes, Viktor completely forgot about him after all of that, and yes, even after Yuri had begrudgingly allowed Viktor the most intimate secret of his life, Katsudon is worth much more.

Soulmates are garbage, he decides as he wheels his suitcase down the Ice Castle’s stairs, the wheels bouncing carelessly with each step.

* * *

 Yuri knows what it means to love. Ironically, it was Viktor who forced him to see it, his _agape,_ lurking beneath the whirling sandstorm of his fury. He loves _Dedushka._ He loves Mila and Georgi. He loves Yakov, Lilia, Mari, Yuuko, Potya, Makkachin… He can even begrudgingly offer some of his love to Viktor and Katsudon. But _agape_ is not _eros._ It is certainly not the soulmates’ _pragma_ , the kind that Katsudon and Viktor have found that makes eight months look like eight years from even the most unobservant passerby’s point of view.

He meets the Hero of Kazakhstan in the lobby of a hotel with a snarled insult. His Angels squeal at him as characteristic fury boils in his veins after that awful encounter with JJ and his insufferable fiancée.

( _Don’t stare at me,_ Yuri means. _Don’t turn out to be another one of them._ )

He meets Otabek Altin on the colourful terrace of the Park Güell with a handshake. The sky wavers on the brink of a sunset and the breeze playfully punctuates every weighty word that falls from Otabek’s lips.

( _Don’t let me go,_ Yuri means. _Don’t forget me._ )

For once, someone hears him.


	2. Lemon Yellow

Yuri milks that gold medal for everything that it’s worth. In the _Appassionato_ costume, stretched all the way over his fingertips, there’s no need for a wristband to hide himself from the world. He feels as triumphant as the flames sewn up his shoulder, glorious as the sun is bright.

 _I hope you’re proud of me,_ Dedulya, he thinks fervently, giving the cameras a weighty glare. _And you, Yuuri Katsuki._

He is no fairy today.

It doesn't faze him, for once, that Viktor has eyes only for his silver medalist. Yuri steps off the rink and brushes by Viktor, intending to do exactly what the older skater did to him when he was moping— _I’m above you, now. I’m far beyond your level_ —but the fool just looks so happy. Yuri has never seen him so animated, not in the eight years Yuri has been skating under Yakov. Love has wrecked the old Viktor, burying him six feet under the tear-soaked rink and all of Katsudon’s blood and anxiety-induced sweat.

‘Hey, Viktor,’ he says. ‘Would you stop flashing that stupid thing around? You’re going to blind someone.’

Viktor smiles at him. Yuri thinks some sort of wordless understanding passes between them.

( _I’m happy for you,_ Yuri means.)

( _Thank you. Well done,_ Viktor answers in return.)

Yuri grabs his runner jacket, slipping it on as he rounds the corner towards the locker room and spots Otabek leaning against the wall, stuffed bear tucked into the curve of his elbow and mouth twisted in resignation. Yuri’s fury flares at the sight. He wants to kick stupid ass JJ in the head and send him sailing across the ice, dammit, that bronze belonged to Otabek and his perfect runs. But when Otabek sees him, his expression softens and his eyes glitter with pride. It draws Yuri closer like a magnet.

‘Congratulations,’ Otabek says. ‘You deserved it.’

Yuri jabs a finger at Otabek’s chest. ‘And you deserved the podium. Try harder next time.’

Otabek looks at him for a beat too long. It makes Yuri want to scoff and walk away to hide his embarrassment—was that insensitive? He’s never cared about being insensitive before, but then again, this friend thing, it’s kind of new.

‘I will,’ Otabek finally says. It’s full of conviction, sincere in its simplicity. Yuri grins at him, the leftover adrenaline driving him to odd things, and Otabek smiles back. It makes Yuri feel bold.

‘Finish that tea thing for real, sometime?’ Yuri asks, twisting his medal between his fingers. ‘You know, without _literally everyone_ barging in and ruining it.’

Otabek shifts his bear in his arms as his coach starts gesturing impatiently for him, giving Yuri a suspicious glance. ‘I’m tired,’ Otabek admits. ‘But tonight’s as good a night as any. It was an interesting conversation.’

Yuri blinks at that. He wasn’t expecting something so immediate. ‘When?’

Otabek starts walking away. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven in the lobby,’ he suggests. ‘We’ll find somewhere, walk around so no one interrupts. Good?’

Yuri swallows past the sudden nerves in his throat. ‘Yeah,’ he says a little late. ‘Yeah, that’s good.’

Otabek smiles at him again and turns to follow his coach out. Yuri watches him go, this odd, twisty feeling in his stomach, and reluctantly pushes into the locker room to take off his costume.

* * *

Yuri shows up in the lobby at exactly 19:00. He knows. He checked his phone at least thirty times in the hallway outside of his room to time it perfectly. There’s no point in doing something stupid like that, but he couldn’t help himself. To his delight, Yuri spots Otabek’s hair from behind amongst the sea of reporters and athletes. He walks over calmly like a cool person, and taps Otabek on the shoulder like a cool person, because he knows how to act around people he respects, right?

Yuri hears JJ’s obnoxious laughter just as Otabek turns around, a helmet dangling from his fingers. It’s enough to take the edge off of Yuri’s flaming rage whenever he’s reminded that JJ is a person who actually exists on this goddamned planet when Otabek wordlessly passes the helmet over. Yuri clutches it to his chest like a lifeline and trails after Otabek, daring anyone to ask him where he’s going and what he’s doing tonight.

Yuri knows, deep down, that if Otabek hadn't remembered him from Yakov’s summer camp, they wouldn't have done any more than offer shallow pleasantries (Otabek) and scowl angrily (Yuri). He tries to imagine that, coming out of the Grand Prix as he entered it with just the gold medal he forced himself to believe was his from the very beginning and nothing else. He finds that he can’t do it. He only really met Otabek four days ago, but something about that handshake makes the moment seem wholly concrete. It was supposed to happen. There’s no other way that this could have gone, no way that Yuri would be doing anything else right now but knocking shoulders with Otabek as they walk down a quiet, pretty little street decorated with flowers, warm tea in cardboard cups dangling from their fingers.

Yuri’s eyes catch for a moment on something like a splash of bright red paint as Otabek tilts his cup up to his lips, his sleeve riding up his arm. It makes something twist unpleasantly in Yuri's stomach.

‘Have you met them yet?’ Yuri demands. Why? He doesn’t care about these things. He doesn’t really care if Otabek knows who his soulmate is, because it changes _nothing_ about the wind blowing Yuri’s way. It’s not a huge deal if he has or he hasn’t because–

‘No,’ Otabek says. ‘I don’t think about it.’

‘You don’t look at it?’ Yuri demands.

‘Of course I do,’ Otabek answers with a small shrug. ‘Doesn’t everyone? But only in passing. Why?’

Before he really knows what he’s doing, Yuri tugs up his sleeve and pushes down the armband. He holds out his arm with determination, like if he’s aggressive about this, it won’t be as awful and embarrassing to have Otabek stare at his scars.

Fuck, why did he think this was a good idea?

But Otabek doesn’t stare, not for long. He looks more surprised to have a forearm abruptly thrust under his nose than to see the raised pink-and-white tissue. However, Yuri doesn’t miss the flicker of shock and pity that crosses Otabek’s face, just for a moment.

‘I don’t,’ Yuri says forcefully, dropping his arm back to his side. ‘I can’t. So forgive me if I’m curious, asshole.’ Otabek looks like he’s about to say something, but Yuri’s too hot to stop. ‘And don’t you dare pity me. If I spot a speck of it on your face I will plant the bottom of my shoe between your eyes.’

Otabek looks at him, long and hard. Yuri feels like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin. Pointedly, Otabek tugs his sleeve down where the red on his skin stands out like blood, now, instead of paint. Somewhere in the back of Yuri’s mind, he thinks that Otabek’s mate must be perpetually angry, but that gets overshadowed entirely by how… cool Otabek is about the entire thing. There’s nothing else to indicate that he pities Yuri, not like how Viktor had acted in the very beginning, not how he sometimes catches _Dedulya_ looking at the wristband with this odd, twisted expression on his face.

Otabek’s eyes stay on Yuri’s. They don’t track down to where Yuri hurriedly pushes the band back into place, like keeping it out in the open will burn him again.

‘Don’t take shit like that for granted,’ Yuri says finally, shoving his hands into his pocket.

Otabek nods solemnly. ‘I won’t.’

He looks so serious that Yuri has to bump him with his shoulder before he takes off again down the alley. ‘Forget about it. Tell me about Almaty.’

And Otabek drops it like it never happened. Instead, he talks about the flowers in the First President’s Park during the summer months, the stairs up to Medeu, the green waters in the Kolsai Lakes, the view of the city lights atop the taller buildings, the mountains towering in the distance. He talks about when his friend Kadyr tried to dye his hair red at home and ended up with a horrible burnt-orange that he still wore like he meant it to be that colour, and the time someone actually stole Otabek’s bike for a night and his friends got the thief back, in their roundabout logic, by painting the whole thing bright, neon pink so it wouldn’t be stolen again. ‘My sister,’ Otabek says dryly as Yuri nearly snorts tea out of his nose, ‘found that extremely amusing.’

‘Amusing,’ Yuri repeats, snickering. ‘You mean _fucking hilarious.’_

Otabek stops, considering and smiling. He takes a sip. Yuri watches him swallow it. ‘The world is different outside of Almaty. ’

‘How so?’

Otabek shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I feel like two different people when I’m home and when I’m competing.’ He falls silent and sips at his tea again.

Yuri huffs. ‘Well. I’ll have to come visit you in Almaty, then. See what the other Otabek’s like.’

Otabek blinks at him. Yuri wonders for a terrifying moment if he’s gone too far, panics at the idea of fucking up this delicate little gift he’s been given, until Otabek offers him a little half smile and it’s okay. ‘Maybe you’ll have to,’ Otabek says. ‘I’ll show you the club where I like to go with my friends. I DJ there, sometimes.’

The relief very quickly turns into surprise, then Yuri’s overwhelmed by how _fucking_ cool that is, oh my god.

Otabek chuckles. Yuri realises he said that out loud and swears with great feeling and creativity to hide his embarrassment.

‘No one’s ever told me that,’ Otabek says. ‘It’s just something I do. Though I guess I’ve never had to tell anyone before.’

Yuri notices how red Otabek’s ears have gone. Hard to hide that with buzzed sides. It’s…

Well. Yuri has a word for how that makes him feel, but everything down to his core shies away from it like it’s poisonous.

Yuri throws his empty cup away as well and avoids looking at Otabek until he’s convinced himself that it’s just the cast of the streetlights.

‘So,’ Yuri says. ‘Ballet?’

Otabek shakes his head. ‘No. Never again, not when I’d constantly be comparing myself to you.’

‘You can’t,’ Yuri says before he can stop himself. ‘I’m the best in the world. But it’d make you better.’

Otabek shrugs. ‘I’m not built for it. I can improve my skating in more enjoyable ways.’ He glances at Yuri. ‘Best in the world, really? You’ve only got the Grand Prix gold. You can only claim you’re the best after you’ve won everything.’

Yuri jabs at his chest. ‘Watch me, asshole. You and me, we’re gonna kick the pig at least down to bronze and wreck JJ.’

Otabek looks ahead. ‘Maybe someday, Yuri. No guarantees for this season.’ He glances over, the determination burning in his eyes. Yuri thinks he’s never seen someone so intense before. It makes him fiercely proud that Otabek so boldly demanded his friendship. _His._ No one else’s.

Otabek remembers him. Otabek listens.

‘But you’re on for next season,’ Otabek goes on. ‘Especially if Nikiforov is skating again.’ Something hungry gleams in his eyes, right on top of all of that intensity. ‘I’d like to switch positions with him on the podium at Worlds.’

Yuri kicks lightly at his ankles. ‘Then do it,’ he says fiercely. ‘But I’ll fight you for that top spot, Altin.’

Otabek laughs. ‘I wouldn’t expect any less, Plisetsky,’ he fires back.

His smile reminds Yuri of the Ice Castle when no one’s in it, when the early morning sun filters through the windows and lands on the dark rink. It’s just oddly specific enough that he thinks about it as he clambers onto the bike, thinks about how it’s been barely four days and he’s never felt more at ease with anyone before than he does now, spilling secrets and desires and baring weaknesses.

He loops his arms around Otabek’s waist without much thought. It's not until they’re already speeding down the streets, darkened shops whizzing past them that Yuri wonders if this is something friends do. He can smell Otabek’s aftershave and his laundry detergent from how close he is and the wind whipping it back into his face. Yuri doesn’t really get cold, either—the perks of Russian blood, he thinks wryly—but Otabek’s back is warm, and Yuri can’t really help himself from scooting a little closer. Do friends do this? Is this weird?

But Otabek invited him, so it must be a thing friends do. Otabek doesn't do weird things. Otabek generally seems to know what he’s doing. Satisfied with his own answer, Yuri closes his eyes and tightens his grip around Otabek’s waist, relishing the sting of speed against his skin and the pulse of the streetlights flashing behind his eyelids, the creak of Otabek’s leather jacket under his arms.

* * *

 They won't see each other face-to-face until Worlds if they miss each other in the Challenger series. It doesn't really matter to Yuri. Skating has always come first. _Always._

He dominates the European Championship and the Russian Nationals, even after Georgi swears up and down that he’s refined his routine enough to give Yuri a run for his money. Viktor doesn't come at all despite his promise to return. Maybe the moron remembered he doesn't have programs, costumes, music… Whatever. Not his problem. When he’s home during Four Continents, Yuri watches Otabek skate with rapt attention through the little TV screen in the living room, texting him threatening messages about pork and borscht and fried cutlets when Katsudon touches down during his short program again but still manages to knock Otabek to bronze. He then sends more harshly-worded versions of the same to Katsudon because he let himself be beaten by _goddamn JJ_ , but Katsudon just texts back a string of smileys and doesn't respond again.

He says the skating is everything. It is. He spends hours at a time on the rink, tweezing out the imperfections in his routines, falling more than necessary as he attempts this quad with an arm above his head, that entry with a more difficult set-up. His feet look and feel like they’ve been trampled by a herd of furious deer. He goes and goes and goes until everyone else has left, even Mila, who usually hangs back to watch him until he snarls at her enough that she laughs and finally departs.

Once, when the whole rink is empty, the lights are off, and the space is filled with silence, Yuri hears the sound of a nostalgic piano piece in his head, imagines he is someone else—someone blind to the crowd and to the reactions of the observers as he dances his career’s story on the ice, knowing that his mate’s pride and adoration sits like a badge above his heart as he watches from the sideboards. These steps are difficult, more technical than Yuri ever does with his sequences, but though he fumbles through it, it doesn't distract from the fantasy. It is dark here, and in the dark, Yuri’s just as human as everyone else. He wants reassurance.

His skates click against the ice as he takes off. There’s a moment of breathtaking quiet, nothing but the darkness spinning around him. He lands the quad flip flawlessly.

 _Would you be proud of me?_ he wonders as he skates to the boards, grasping for his water bottle and the black band he’s left by his skate guards. _Would you clap for me, cry for my victories, pick me up when I fall?_

He tries not to think too hard about the fact that he knows his rival’s free program by heart. It’s a program about love, _pragma,_ a thing Yuri doesn't understand… but by god does he want it.

His phone lights up with a reminder. An hour until his Skype call with Otabek. His self-pity dissolves with his attention to himself, the silence of the rink, the ache of his ankles.

The skating is everything. It always has been. He thinks it always will be.

He hasn't seen Otabek face-to-face since Barcelona, but that doesn't really matter. Yuri has never spent so long talking to a single person in a night. The thought of sprawling on his bed with Potya curled up on his chest, Otabek’s soothing voice recounting the successes of his day from making his coffee strong enough to consistently landing another quad in his free program in practice, makes Yuri chuck his skates into his locker a little faster.


	3. Venetian Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't know, in Slavic-speaking cultures, a patronym references the person's father and goes after the first name, before the surname. Since she doesn’t have a canon one, I’ve made one up for Lilia. Her name in this verse is Lilia Alexandrovna Baranovskaya, or Lilia from the Baranovsky family, daughter of Alexander. As such, I have had Yuri refer to Lilia as ‘Lilia Alexandrovna.’

__It’s a Sunday afternoon when it starts. Or maybe it started before, after. . . what the fuck ever. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s the Sunday Yuri remembers, mostly because it sets his blood to boiling and he can’t give a good explanation for why without admitting too much to himself.

He gets angry a lot. That’s just how it is. Sometimes he can help it and he just chooses not to restrain himself, and sometimes the rage burns through him without restraint. It’s a lot of the _I-don’t-know-how-to-say-this-so-I’ll-yell-instead_ problem that’s gripped him since he turned twelve. People tend not to take him seriously when he’s mad, which, really, that’s the fucking worst, but at least he always knows why he’s angry. There is always a reason, like someone getting too nosy with his bracelet or saying he looks like his mother or Viktor and Katsudon being too cutesy or just JJ Leroy’s face.

But Mila, laying back on one of the benches with her phone and making cooing noises at Instagram? That’s not something that normally sets him off. He’s on his way to join her as he notices the blush on her face, the starry look in her eyes. That’s enough to make him throw retching noises in her direction, which she waves off with an impatient hand.

‘Leave me alone,’ she complains when he keeps going. ‘Let me pine in peace.’

He immediately bends down to snoop. ‘Who’s the idiot this time?’ he demands as she dangles her phone out of the way, giggling. ‘Another hockey player?’

‘Nope,’ she says, elbowing him out of the way so she can sit up. Yuri slides next to her on the bench as she shows him the sparse profile she’s been stalking, and—

No. Nope, nope, no _fucking_ way.

‘Isn’t he your friend, Yura?’ Mila asks, tilting the screen back in her direction.

Yuri bats at her phone and the picture of Otabek and his unfairly attractive friend, leaning against each other’s backs and looking intensely into the camera. ‘Yeah, so what?’

‘He’s hot,’ Mila says without preamble, scrolling just out of Yuri’s reach. ‘D’you know if he’s met his mate yet?’

‘I don’t fucking know,’ Yuri lies sharply. ‘And it’s none of your business, _Baba!’_

‘It’s entirely my business if he doesn’t,’ Mila counters. ‘It means I have a chance. Give me his number?’

Yuri gives up and shoves her away, glaring. ‘You’re disgusting.’

She laughs at his expression. ‘I’m just saying.’

‘Say it about anyone else, then,’ Yuri snarls, the fury coiling in his chest like a snake. He keeps glaring at her. She looks up at him, her blushy smile fading into something thoughtful before she pointedly backs out of Otabek’s profile and sets her phone down.

‘Alright,’ she says easily. ‘Just for you, Yuri. His friend’s hot, too. I’d go for him in a heartbeat.’ She gives him a long look, like she’s waiting for something. He just a little bit wants to kick her.

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ she says, giving him an infuriating little smile. ‘Just that you’re cute when you’re all angry over a boy, kitten.’

She leaves him standing there to take to the ice, rolling her neck and her wrists and cheerfully waving at the kids on the ice while Yuri fumes.

He absolutely does _not_ go back and stare at that picture of Otabek and his friend on his own phone. He doesn’t agree with Mila at all. The other boy’s not good-looking with his stupid hair. Otabek said he hadn’t found his mate. He wouldn’t lie. They’re friends. _Best_ friends.

Otabek’s not hot. Nope. He’s just got that dark undercut that JJ can’t pull off to save his life and muscle he can't hide beneath all of his shirts and a motorcycle and a smile like the moonlight in Hatsetsu and a quiet little laugh Yuri’s fairly sure no one else has ever heard before.

Otabek’s not…

 _Yuri’s_ not…

Shit.

Yuri drops his phone like it’s scalding hot and swears with great feeling.  The scars on his arm don’t agree with the nameless… something swirling in his chest. This is not going to fuck up his day, his week, competition season, his _life._ His life is skating, skating, skating… There’s no reason to get so damn angry over Mila and her stupid crushes. That’s not how the world works.

He needs a glass of ice water. Preferably to the face.

* * *

It’s hard not to notice now that the seed’s been planted. Otabek will remark on Yuri’s odd silences over their Skype calls when Yuri’s gotten distracted by the stray lock of hair that tickles at Otabek’s forehead or the curl of his lips when he gets animated about something or the way he raises a single brow everytime Yuri does something characteristically _him._ Yuri feels stripped bare by it. ‘What?’ Otabek will ask, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, and Yuri will say something snarky, and it’ll all be fine, except that Yuri will think about it long after he’s hung up, staring at the dark ceiling and unable to erase the images from his mind.

He wonders if the mark on his mate’s body is flushed embarrassingly red and pink, aqua with confusion and purple with frustration. Or maybe, he thinks sadistically, maybe the damage to his has ruined his mate’s as well. Then they won’t see that Yuri’s got a thing he won’t dare fucking admit out loud for his best friend who probably has a really nice, pretty Kazakh girl with his mark on her arm, _god dammit—_

Potya yowls as Yuri flips over, dumping the cat unceremoniously on the mattress as he buries his face into his pillows and screams.

* * *

Otabek Skypes him without warning on March 2. Yuri’s still trying to wash the glitter out of his hair where Mila and Georgi had tossed it at him with a synchronised ‘Happy birthday!’ the day before. Yuri picks up, rubbing fruitlessly at his sparkly wet hair, and grins at his friend. ‘Hey.’

‘Nice,’ Otabek says when he sees the glitter. Yuri glares. Otabek laughs. ‘It looks like you enjoyed yourself. Happy birthday, Yura.’

Otabek doesn't seem to get why Yuri starts choking at first, his mind wiped blank with two syllables. It’s not that big of a deal. It should do nothing. It’s one letter. All of the skaters from home call him that except for stupid Viktor and his stupid Japanese nickname. Why does it make him feel like his heart’s going to punch out of his chest when it comes out of Otabek's mouth? 

‘You don’t just—You can’t just drop something like that out of the blue,’ Yuri says, his voice betraying him a little with how high it’s gone.

Finally, Otabek’s eyes fill with understanding. He sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. ‘Oh. Sorry. Are you not okay with that?’

Yuri coughs. His whole face feels hot, dammit. ‘Uh, yeah, I mean—it’s fine. Yeah. Yura’s… good?’

‘Good,’ Otabek says, his smile widening.

Yuri’s not quite sure what to say to that, so he jabs at his webcam. ‘But if you say it in public, the Angels are gonna find out and I will get on a damned plane and personally skin you with my skate.’

( _You asked me,_ Yuri means, _you asked me if it was alright, no one’s ever done that before—_ )

Otabek raises a brow at that. ‘My friends call me Beks, sometimes,’ he offers. ‘And Amina calls me Beka.’

Oh, Yuri knows. He’s waited impatiently while Otabek caved to his little sister yelling at him offscreen to get off his laptop and make her a snack with a high, whining ‘Beeekaaaa, I’m hungryyyyyy!’ There was also the time Amina’s face popped into view and, without missing a beat, she’d said, ‘Beka, is that Yuri? He’s really pretty,’ right before Otabek pushed her back out of sight. Yuri’d shamelessly preened for the rest of the night.

But that’s not important. What sets his heart thundering in his ears is the fact that Otabek, in maybe a heartbeat, figured out exactly what Yuri needed to hear. Yuri can count on three fingers the other people who’ve done that: _Dedushka._ Viktor. Yuuko.

‘Beka,’ Yuri echoes. It feels right coming off his tongue, something none of the other skaters have the right to say. He knows exactly how to use it, too.

Otabek is like a talented actor, Yuri thinks, or maybe a multi-faced god. The Hero of Kazakhstan is a force of nature, a warrior facing a storm of evil with the razor-sharp blades of his skates. He slips on a fighting mask to face the cameras and the spotlights, all stern and hyperfocused and stoic in every way. Another face: Otabek Altin, the one who outright demands friendship and rescues errant skaters on his motorbike, radiating badassery like a cologne and luring in people like Yuri with magnetic intensity and bluntness. The third: The one who speaks softly and smiles more than he should, the one who hesitates when he’s unsure if what he’s said is okay and giggles like a girl in the early hours of the morning, the one who makes Yuri’s insides feel like they’ve gone through a blender and been poured back into his shell, warm and hopelessly jumbled into a giant mess.

That one’s Beka.

Beka and Yura, spending their nights passing back stories and information like spies for no one, the two of them against the rest of the world. Yeah, he likes that. No, more than likes it—it’s pretty fucking great, actually. ‘Good?’

‘Very,’ Beka says, and Yuri can’t stop smiling, even when it’s suddenly 3AM and he’s been sitting in the dark for an hour and he really needs to stop this before things go spinning out of control.

* * *

 Things are mostly okay after that. It’s easy to bury the jumble of confusion and the nameless feelings that swirl like a storm in his chest under the unrelenting surface of the ice. Yuri practices for Worlds like his life depends on it, especially since JJ’s apparently hinged his marriage date on whether or not he wins. Yeah, no, that’s not gonna fucking happen. He can wait another five _years_ for all Yuri cares. Cocky bastard deserves to never get married if he’s gonna do something stupid like that.

Speaking of stupid marriage decisions, Viktor’s finally extracted himself from Japan and returned in a whirlwind of lovesickness and determination, flashing his goddamned ring in everyone’s faces like they haven't fucking seen it a billion times before.

Viktor gets no more than ‘Yuuri’s moving–’ out of his mouth when Yuri realises he’s going to have to endure them being stupidly gross _every single day_ and yep, there goes his year.

Really, Yuri can't say it’s that bad. He doesn't mind Katsudon (try getting him to admit that out loud, he fucking dares you) and a happy Viktor is better than a mopey Viktor. Alright, that’s a lie; he thinks Katsudon is a little more than okay. It’s the thought of both of them together that makes his insides clench unpleasantly in reminder. Even though it’s nearly been a year, the betrayal still stings like a bitch. Yuri doesn't think he’ll ever really forgive Viktor, even after their weird moments in Barcelona. He stands by what he said: The Viktor Nikiforov he admired so much is dead.

‘Oh, Yurio!’ Viktor calls when he sees him, but Yuri ignores him as he steps out onto the ice. The other skaters give him a wider berth as Yuri holds his head high, his jaw set, and skates segments of his routines. To his relief, Viktor seems to remember that he knows what Yuri actually means and leaves him alone.

Once Yuri gets off the ice, the bastard goes and shows off the choreography for next season’s short program, and god. Viktor’s supposed to be old and decrepit, but he’s persistent as hell, and apparently he’s not taking Yuri’s record sitting down. Apparently Katsudon’s been showing him tricks for his step sequences, and really, is the quad lutz in the second half necessary? Viktor’s practically wheezing with the effort when he stops, but Yuri knows for certain that Viktor didn’t have a routine before Barcelona and that was what, three months ago?

‘Why aren’t you competing at Worlds?’ Georgi demands, looking relieved that Viktor hadn’t shown up for Nationals like he’d promised.

Viktor shrugs. ‘I’m not happy with my free program. Besides!’ He grins. ‘I want to kiss my Yuuri’s gold medal. Why would I make it any harder right at the end of the season?’

Yuri thinks he might actually throw up.

* * *

‘Yurio?’ Mila asks him later.

‘That’s not my name!’ he snaps defensively. He’s given up on Viktor and the Japanese clan, but in his own rink, his home? He was the first Yuri. He will always be the first Yuri. He’s keeping his own damned name.

Mila pouts. ‘What, Viktor gets to do it, but not me?’

Yuri bats her away. ‘Viktor doesn’t get to do anything,’ he says savagely. ‘I didn’t hear anyone say anything, did you?’

Mila looks pointedly over to where Viktor’s doing lazy crossovers around the emptying rink. Then she huffs a quiet ‘oh’ and looks away. ‘Right. I must have made it up. No Yurio.’

She’s really not that bad. Yuri thinks that if he was forced to pick anyone in the world to be his sibling, he’d pick her. ‘No Yurio.’

And that’s that.

* * *

 So there’s plenty to distract from the images behind his eyes. There’s competition and Yakov’s indignant sputtering when Viktor greets him again and two weeks later there’s an extra member of their rink, the lone black jacket in a sea of red and blue who blushes easily and makes friends with everyone and who could fool them all into forgetting that he broke Viktor’s free program record. That’s enough, Yuri thinks. That’s enough.

And if he avoids Viktor in the months leading up to Worlds? That’s fine. It leaves Viktor looking like a disappointed puppy, which is hilarious, and even Katsudon doesn't push it, which is a blessing.

There’s only victory ahead.

Except there isn’t, because yeah, even he forgets in time that he looked up to Katsudon once upon a time for a reason.

The day starts out nicely enough with a quiet breakfast with his best friend at a table far away from everyone else. Even when Otabek’s coach and Yakov start sending them identical exasperated looks until Yuri reluctantly gets up to go get ready, the whole world seems calm. Usually the nerves buzz under the surface of his skin, the lights of the arena hot on his back, but today, there’s… nothing. There’s just Otabek knocking his shoulder before he goes out for his short program, the automatic _‘Davai!’_ he shouts after him, Otabek’s straight-faced thumbs up in return.

What happens in the thirty some odd hours in the middle… He can’t even remember it. It’s all kind of a blur. All he knows is that he’s probably got a bruised hip that will hurt like a bitch for at least a week and Viktor is going to be insufferable for the rest of his life, since apparently hinging your wedding date on a gold medal actually works if your name means victory.

He doesn’t understand. He’s landed these jumps every single damn time without fail since Euros. _Every single time_ except the one time it matters, apparently, because even though his _Agape_ routine was nearly perfect (He’s trying not to think too hard how the focus of that has gone from the love of everyone in his life to thoughts of Otabek, Otabek, Otabek…), he flubbed not one, not two, but _three_ of his jumps in his free program, and no hastily added extra quads were going to fix that.

‘Chin up,’ Lilia Alexandrovna tells him sternly as he nearly rips his laces out of his skates trying to get them off. ‘We do not crumble at every defeat. You are strong, Yuri. This is not the end.’

So Yuri tries and fails to smile from the sidelines as Katsudon beams in the centre of the podium.

What? Do they expect him to be happy about this? All that potential, all that confidence, his Grand Prix and Europeans and Nationals golds and the two others from the Challenger series, and what, he completely botches the last important competition of the season? What kind of skater is he?

He can’t wait for all the pitying pats on the back and condolences he’s going to get from literally everyone he knows.

The single saving grace is that Otabek edged a panicking JJ out for silver. Yuri can’t tell anything by Otabek’s stoic expression, the straight set of his back, the Kazakh flag in his hand. He usually can, but dammit, his vision’s gone all blurry and he needs to get out of the damn rink before anyone sees–

The night is a blur of condolences and escaping his weeping Angels, every single one of whom seem to want to give him a too-long hug. Every touch makes his skin itch unpleasantly. Why won't they leave him alone? He just wants to hole up and keep his deep shame to himself. No, that’s not right; he wants real comfort. He wants the kind of sincere, understanding, supportive comfort that leaves him a real person, grounded on his own two feet after it buoys him up and seals him against the storm where he can feel himself cracking like a porcelain doll.

No one gets it, not really, no one but Katsudon. He bets Katsudon is good at that kind of thing once it breaks past his colder exterior that yeah, maybe his comfort is worth something to someone else. Hell if Yuri gets anywhere near him, though, not on his victory night. Yuri wants to be able to say something. He wants to say _I get it, I understand what you felt, and maybe I'm a little sorry about what I said to you when you lost, because I can't imagine someone saying it to me—_

Oh, god.

He breaks away from Lilia’s grip on his shoulder and makes for an elevator, limping just a tiny bit from the aching pain shooting up and down his leg. Inside, he jabs at the close button until it shuts everyone out and he can breathe a little bit. There’s one other person he’s sure understands. Thoughts of a sad, proud little smile, aimed at him from the sidelines, makes him press the button for the 15th floor instead of the 23rd, his jaw aching from clenching it so hard and his vision red with fury—at his fans, at JJ, at Katsudon, at Viktor, at Lilia and Yakov, at himself.

Yuri thinks he’s never been so grateful for anyone in his life when he knocks on Otabek’s hotel door and Otabek opens it immediately for him. Gratitude and hatred mixing unpleasantly in his core, Yuri sits on the edge of Otabek’s bed and glares at the wall while Otabek quietly pours ice chips from the container on the desk into a towel. He hands it to Yuri to press against his quickly purpling thigh. They sit in silence for a while, Yuri scowling at nothing, Otabek patiently waiting for him to speak. Then Yuri can’t help it. When the first drops of moisture hit his jeans, Otabek wordlessly pulls him closer and lets Yuri weep into his shoulder, shivering with exhaustion and soaking Otabek’s t-shirt with ugly tears. When he settles a comforting hand over Yuri’s wristband, Yuri maybe, _maybe_ cries a little harder. God, does his mate have his self-hatred and disappointment on their skin? What must they think of him? Did they even watch him fail so horribly? Did they think about how awful this must be for him, or did they see him on-screen and think poor, poor Yuri Plisetsky, what a shame, such wasted potential?

Otabek saw it. Otabek watched him crack and crumble from the kiss and cry, coming off the high of bumping a crumbling JJ down to bronze and waiting for Yuri to kick him off the podium. And what, nothing? No disappointment, no pity?

( _Walk it off, soldier,_ Yuri thinks Otabek means as he pulls Yuri a little closer. _I will respect you no less than I did before you fell._ )


	4. Oxford Blue

Yuri will never skate _Agape_ or _Appassionato_ in competition again.

Is that supposed to make him feel sad? He’s not sure. All Yuri feels when he steps back onto the rink in St. Petersburg and realises that he doesn’t need to practice is numbness.

Really, he doesn’t need to be here at all, but the rink is his home. He doesn’t want to hide, he doesn’t want to cower under his loss, but he can’t really help himself. He wants to do those damn routines one last time, perfectly, before he retires them forever. Is that so weak and sentimental of him? What’s the point in skating them if there’s no score attached? He used to think that way. That’s why he never took exhibition skates seriously. There’s no point to this, not really, except that Yuri starts to skate to the _Appassionato_ music in his warmup clothes and he doesn’t feel impassioned at all, and that’s not right.

He takes off the wristband and tries it again, and that does… something. He’s not so much numb anymore as he is dulled down, like someone’s drained all of the drive and motivation out of him through a cork in his heel. That bracelet is his shackle, his chain to who he is, dysfunctional on the surface and deep in his bones. He is bare without it, but he is free.

He’s mourned for two thirds of his life. The feeling isn’t new, but the absence of the medal on the wall in his bedroom where he’d made space for it adds to his raging grief on the empty ice today. The frustration hums under his skin, itchy like a peeling sunburn. He wants to scream, or maybe hurl himself onto the ice like a child and throw a tantrum, but he won't. He won’t throw a fit here, not when he grew up in this rink, not when it has seen him grow taller and reedier and stronger with each passing day.

His skates scrape over the smooth surface of the ice, marring its perfect coldness a little bit more with each crossover.

Stupid Katsudon. Stupid JJ. Stupid Viktor. Stupid Otabek. Fuck, he wants to scream and pound at the ice at the unfairness of it all. This, the skating, the golds, the _validation,_ was all he had. This was how he was supposed to make up for being a little incomplete. He was an inferno, a supernova burning brighter than everyone else, he thinks bitterly. There’s nothing special about that. He’s just like all Russian prodigies. He’s burned out in a flash of greatness with two records made at 15 and nothing else.

He doesn’t hear the door open as he does the quad he screwed up at both the Grand Prix and at Worlds and lands it just the way it was supposed to be landed, arms held high and knees bent just right to take most of the shock of the impact out of his bones. When he sees Viktor watching him, leaning on the boards with his water bottle in hand, Yuri almost crashes into the other side.

‘What the fuck?’ Yuri asks angrily, kicking off and speeding for the gate. ‘Fine, take the stupid rink, I'm done anyways.’

He can feel Viktor’s gaze boring into the side of his head all the way back across the ice. With a snarl, he storms out the gate and stupid Viktor doesn’t _move the fuck out of the way_. When he jostles Viktor with his shoulder, something snaps in him like a rubber band pulled too far.

‘I hated you,’ Yuri hisses impulsively. Viktor pauses, his hand on the gate. ‘Right after the Onsen on Ice competition? Yeah. That fucking sucked. I trusted you with my secrets. And don't give me any of that _forgetful_ bullshit, you knew what you’d promised me.’ Yuri slams his hand down on the railing. Viktor doesn't even flinch, but his eyes are wide, startled by Yuri’s aggression. ‘But love got in the way, huh? That was more important, wasn't it?’ He points accusingly at Katsudon’s emotions painted across Viktor’s bicep. ‘I get it. Ha, wait, no I fucking don't.’

Viktor lets go of the gate. Yuri wants to slap the wounded look off of his stupid face. ‘Yurio, I’m not very good with… emotions?’ Viktor wrings his hands together. ‘I really did forget. I didn’t know that’s why you were upset. I thought you just wanted the routine.’

Yuri doesn’t really know what to feel about that. Maybe offended? ‘I wasn’t trying to use you. Well, yeah, I was, but I wasn’t _just_ trying to use you. Do you think I got on a plane to fucking Japan to ask you to ditch Katsudon for the fun of it? Was I joking about asking you to coach me?’

Viktor opens his mouth and shuts it again. ‘Oh,’ he says finally.

Yuri refuses to look at him. ‘Yeah. Oh.’

There’s a beat of nothing where Yuri wants to say more, wants to swear and kick at Viktor and maybe cry, but he’s not going to fucking do that. He’s nearly a man, he’s a ballerina, a performer, dammit, he’s going to act like one.

‘Yurio, hold on,’ Viktor says as Yuri tries to leave. He reaches out and wraps long fingers around Yuri’s wrist, keeping Yuri from fleeing.

‘Let me go,’ Yuri snaps, tugging, but Viktor is stronger, his expression determined. ‘Get off of me, you bastard, I don’t need this, I’ve never needed your fucking pity—’

‘ _Yuri,’_ Viktor says forcefully, and Yuri stops struggling, startled. Viktor takes a breath and lets go of him. ‘Sit with me for a minute, okay?’

Reluctantly, Yuri follows him to a bench and sits at the opposite end, breathing hard. Viktor folds his hands primly in his lap and waits for Yuri to calm down enough.

‘What,’ Yuri says bitingly after Viktor’s sat there doing nothing for too long. Viktor taps his lip before he flicks at his fringe, his eyes tracking his own fingers.

‘Did I ever tell you why I cut my hair?’

Yuri looks up at him. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’ Viktor doesn't answer, just waits with this infuriating blank expression. Yuri sighs in frustration. ‘You didn’t say. I thought it was your stupid surprise thing?’

Viktor shakes his head. Yuri watches him take a breath and twist his ring as he looks off at the lights around the roof of the rink.

Viktor’s nervous. What? It’s not right. It leaves him rattled, shaken to his core. Viktor has never been anything but calm in serious situations.

‘That’s what I say when someone asks.’ Viktor tugs the ring off his finger and starts flipping it. ‘And I suppose it was a surprising thing to do. But really? I was depressed and lonely. You climb to the top and get knocked back down. It hurts.’ He glances over at Yuri. ‘I’ve always thought that skaters’ hearts are made of glass. One too many remarks about how confusing my long hair made me to other people, right after I missed the podium completely the year after Torino, pushed me over the edge. I did something I regretted. There wasn’t anyone around to stop me.’ Viktor slides the ring back on.

Yuri’s aware his mouth is hanging open. He shuts it and swallows.

‘That wasn't something I could take back. It would have taken me years to regrow it, so I didn’t. I lost part of my identity because I let everything get to me, but I’ve replaced it over time. I’ve found other things to define me.’ He glances at Yuri. ‘Does that surprise you, that I was depressed?’

‘No,’ Yuri says, because really, it doesn’t. He remembers Viktor when he first showed up to the rink with his short hair, quiet and distant, mechanical like a robot. He remembers how cold Viktor was after what happened when Katsudon failed to call after Sochi. He remembers catching Viktor standing at the balconies of hotels, staring off into the distance with blank expressions, looking like he might just…

Fall.

‘Ah, I suppose I can't always be an enigma.’ Viktor laughs shallowly and swallows. ‘I’m sorry, Yuri. I didn’t mean to abandon you.’

‘But you did,’ Yuri says. Viktor’s eyes drop to the floor in the most pathetically puppy-dog expression he’s seen on a man, and _fuck_. ‘Fine, you didn’t mean to do it, whatever. But I won’t forgive you so easily.’

‘But you might?’

‘Maybe.’ Yuri crosses his arms.

( _Yes, eventually,_ he means.)

Viktor meets his eyes again at that, looking far too grateful for Yuri’s comfort. Yuri fidgets. ‘Then if you’ll take a little more advice from someone who used to think the universe was unfair?’ Viktor waits. Yuri shrugs. ‘Don’t let your failures and your critics shape you the way mine did. You know what your goals are. Just because you achieved them once doesn’t mean that’s the end. Skating is not your life. You can’t ignore the real thing forever.’

Viktor’s golden blades catch the fluorescent lights as he steps into the ice, shaking out his wrists like he hasn't just fucking rocked Yuri’s world. Yuri feels caught, stripped naked and shoved in front of a train.

_Skating is not your life._

He flees, because what else is he going to do?

* * *

It’s easier to take Viktor’s words to heart with the skating season over. Yakov turns all of his skaters loose for a couple weeks of post-competition rest and freedom, so Yuri goes to Moscow for the first time in months to a plate of steaming, fluffy piroshkis and a happier _Dedulya_ than he can remember. It’s supposed to comforting to be in his old bed, all of his childhood knick-knacks right where he left them and junior-level medals displayed proudly on the walls. He makes new space for his golds and hangs them up right above his shelf, childishly arranging his china figurines around the base like they’re gazing up at the sun. That’s something to be proud of, right? Right?

He wraps himself and Potya up in his comforter like a marshmallow and breathes in the fresh, clean scent of the detergent. However, even with his baby curled up in his arms like a fluffy hot water bottle, Yuri feels cold down to his bones. It was easy to ride the glory right to the cliff’s edge, but here at the bottom? It’s just deep, dark waters. Empty. Quiet. Loneliness is easier to notice when there’s nothing else to think about, and the skating can’t distract him now without pulling him down, down, down…

It’s easy to drown in it.

‘He’s right,’ Yuri whispers into Potya’s fur. The cat squirms in his grip. ‘There, I fucking said it. Viktor’s right.’

Even Otabek mentions that Yuri seems off, just once, when Yuri’s still wrapped up in his blanket and the only light in the room is the blue light from his laptop. ‘Are you okay?’ Beka asks when he’s been rambling and ranting about how gross Katsudon and Viktor have been for just a little bit too long. Yuri has to pause for breath, panting hard, before he presses his face into his hands and groans in frustration.

‘I don’t know,’ he says honestly. ‘Distract me with something, please.’

So Beka talks about the new headphones his mother gave him when he finally went home, about the infamous Kadyr and the time he “accidentally” stripped in a bar, the breakfast when Amina snorted milk out of her nose and all over his shirt laughing over a really stupid joke about dinosaurs, and normally that would work. It always has before. But it’s just not…

‘Let me see it?’ he asks through his hands. Beka stops.

‘Yura?’

‘Your mark.’ Yuri peeks out between his fingers, not caring how crass or invasive he sounds. ‘Can I look at it?’

Beka’s expression doesn’t change for a solid fifteen seconds. Those fifteen seconds feel like fifty years of Yuri sitting there in his puffy comforter, frozen like a deer. Did he cross a line? Is it okay to ask something like that? He doesn’t know. He’s dealt with lovesick Viktor and Mila making no effort to cover up the splash of colour on her neck and Lilia and Yakov very carefully pretending that theirs don’t match. There are social conventions about these types of things, old modesty rules and people who get embarrassed about how bright their colours are, and Yuri does not give a single fuck about them. But with Otabek? Yuri hopes he never has to see Beka uncomfortable because he did something stupid. What kind of shit friend would he be, then?

But Otabek finally pushes up the sleeve of his sweater and sets his elbow on his desk, fingers curled towards his camera so Yuri can see the swirl of colours on the inside of his forearm. Yuri has never seen beyond the brief flashes of reds and oranges from watching Otabek’s clothes shift, never wanted to think about it without falling into a downward spiral of gross, terrifying thoughts. The mark is pointed—like an arrow, maybe, or a cross—towards his wrist, the colour billowing out like watercolour ink on thick paper.

He’s spent long nights holed up with _Dedulya’s_ old colour index and reading through all of the emotion/shade matches like a starving man. He knows what everything means. Depression is a deep, dark blue, the way Yuri imagines the depths of the ocean. Otabek’s mark is saturated in it. It’s speckled with the grey of disappointment and tipped in its normal angry red. Around the edges, there’s a conflicting, pale yellow, like the colour of ease. The whole thing looks, in stark contrast to his comparison, like a slow-burning fire.  

For such a pretty mark, Beka’s soulmate seems… kind of pathetic.

‘I listened to you,’ Otabek says after Yuri’s scrutinized it as best as he can through a computer screen. ‘I started paying more attention. This started a couple weeks ago.’ He taps the blue. ‘I shouldn’t have looked. All I can do is look at the colours and wish I could fix their problems.’

There’s a lump in Yuri’s throat that threatens to suffocate him if he doesn’t force it open with words. Any words. ‘You’re such a fucking romantic.’ Shit. ‘It’s not just something you can fix.’ He can’t stop. ‘But yeah, okay, try. Because I’m sure they look at their mark and wonder if you’re thinking about them and it helps. I don’t have one and it–’  

He grits his teeth and shuts up.

( _I_ _t helps me,_ he means, but hell if he’s going to admit that he’s more than just a little bit lonely.)

Otabek gives him an appraising look and drops his arm back out of sight. ‘Alright. I will.’

Yuri looks down at his lap and pulls the comforter a little bit closer. ‘It’s nice to be home, I guess.’

‘Yes,’ Otabek agrees. ‘Everything’s slowed down. It’s… quiet.’

‘Quiet,’ Yuri echoes. ‘That’s a way of putting it.’ Then, reluctantly, ‘I’m tired.’

‘I know,’ Otabek says. ‘I’ll let you sleep, okay?’

‘Okay.’ He meant something else, but by the look on his face, he’s pretty sure Otabek understands. ‘Thank you. For showing me, I mean.’

Otabek nods. ‘You showed me yours. It was only fair.’ The audio rustles as Otabek pushes his sleeve down offscreen. ‘Goodnight, Yura.’

‘Goodnight, Beka,’ Yuri whispers as Otabek hangs up.

Quiet. No, not quite. More than that. Deep waters.

He wonders if Otabek’s soulmate knows how lucky they are.

* * *

When he goes to get the mail from the boxes on the first floor, there’s a slightly battered package among all the bills and flyers. He doesn't think much of it. He just hauls it and the envelopes back up the stairs and into his grandpa’s flat. Leaving the coupon magazines out to sort through later, Yuri crumples the flyers into balls to shoot at the bin, bouncing them off the rim and the wall.  Finally, he turns his half-hearted attention to the box, wrapped up carefully in brown paper with a label stuck neatly across the top.

The first thing he sees is the return address in Almaty. Suddenly he’s ripping at the paper, something warm and welcome unfurling in his chest as he tears off the tape and unfolds the box. People don’t just _do_ this, sending random packages without warning. His birthday was over a month ago and he had Otabek’s present, a wooden tiger with glittering yellow eyes perched in a place of honour on his desk, so it isn’t that, and there is literally nothing in the near future to get excited about, so what the hell? He tosses the pink tissue paper––haha, very fucking funny––somewhere without looking and pulls out the stuffed bear from its nest.

He remembers this bear. A proud fan had thrown it on the ice in Barcelona after Otabek’s flawless, bronze-medal-deserving run while Yuri was standing at the gate, the weight of expectation balancing precariously on his shoulders. Otabek had been carrying it while Yuri was skating, the silly thing tucked in the crook of his elbow when Yuri had caught him in the hallway afterwards. It’s in good condition, as far as Yuri can tell. It smells like Otabek’s aftershave, the kind of scent that rockets Yuri back to his chest pressed up against the warmth of Otabek’s back, Spanish street lights zipping past him in streaks of orange. He probably slept with this bear, Yuri realises with a jolt.

There’s a long envelope tied to its foot. Yuri rips it open, shaking its contents out onto the counter with a flick of his wrist. The strip of glossy paper and the Aeroflot logo stare up at him, daring him to pick it up and read it even though he knows what it is. He feels his throat tighten as he pulls off the blue sticky note stuck to the front of it and reads, in elegant, careful Cyrillic:

_I thought you might need a change in scenery._

‘You asshole,’ Yuri says immediately when Otabek accepts his Skype call. He hugs the bear close to his chest and glares at him with suspiciously wet eyes. ‘You can't just—You can't send me shit like this without warning, I can't just pack up and go wherever I want now because I fucked that up chasing Viktor to Japan and not only will Lilia personally rip me to shreds but so will _Dedulya_ and my tutor—’

‘Breathe, Yura,’ Otabek instructs, and Yuri sucks in a breath. ‘I already asked to your coaches. Lilia Alexandrovna agreed that some time away from Russia might be good for you. She spoke to your grandfather and your tutor already.’ Yuri opens his mouth to protest, but Otabek cuts him off. ‘It’s off-season and it’s only for a week.’ He looks uncertain now. ‘Unless you changed your mind?’

Yuri sputters. ‘Who said I changed my mind? Hell yes, I’m going!’

Otabek grins. ‘Good. I have so much to show you.’

* * *

Usually, eating breakfast with his grandpa is the reason he pulls himself out of bed in the mornings now. Even in these past few weeks, when all Yuri feels like doing is curling up in a ball and feeling sorry for himself, Sunday mornings with _Dedulya,_ a cup of tea, and a plate of sugary _blinis_ come as easy as breathing. However, this time takes all of Yuri’s nerves to sit down across from his grandpa, reading the paper and drinking his coffee black and disgusting, and not feel like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin. _Dedulya_ flips a page. Yuri chews on his lip.

‘Did Lilia Alexandrovna talk to you?’ he asks after he’s ripped a pancake apart and nibbled bits of it to calm himself.

His grandpa’s eyes flicker to him over the top of his paper before he folds it and sets it down. ‘She did.’

Yuri waits. His grandpa raises an eyebrow at him until he pulls the plane ticket out from under the table and slaps it on the wood.

‘I’m going to Almaty,’ Yuri says assertively. ‘Tonight. So.’

‘Ah,’ _Dedulya_ says, giving it an appraising look. ‘So you are. Are you visiting that boy you always talk to all night?’

Yuri chokes. ‘I don't- I don't know what you’re talking about. I don't talk to people all night. And what if it’s more than one person, huh?’

He chuckles. ‘I’m an old man, Yurotchka, but I’m not deaf yet. These walls are thin.’

Yuri goes to protest again, but he knows he’s lost this one. ‘Yeah, alright, fine, I’m going to visit him. My friend. In Almaty.’

 _Dedulya_ looks at him patiently.

‘And you’re just okay with that?’ Yuri demands, dropping his fork with a clatter. ‘What, no “You’re too young, Yurotchka,” or “Think it through, Yurotchka,” or “Don’t do something stupid, Yurotchka?”’ He’d gotten an earful of something like that from Yakov when he came back from Japan with _Agape_ and his head dipped low with defeat.

His grandpa folds his hands on the table. ‘You remind me of your mother,’ he says carefully, and Yuri recoils in a full-body flinch. ‘Impulsive. Untameable. But you are much wiser than her, I think. You are almost a man, and you have made many decisions in your life like an adult far before you should have had to. You have made mistakes and you have taken risks.’ He sighs. ‘You have much to learn, Yurotchka, but you know yourself well. If you think this trip will make you happier, than who am I to stop you?’

Yuri swallows past the lump in his throat. ‘Grandpa…’

‘I hope this boy is a good influence for you,’ _Dedulya_ says. ‘He must be very important for you to go.’

Yuri feels caught under an x-ray, all his bones and the deep, secret desire etched into their surface on full view. ‘He’s not- He’s just a-’ Yuri can't lie _._ ‘Yes, he is.’

His grandpa reaches across the table and takes Yuri’s hand, his grip tight and his expression serious. ‘Be careful, then. You are strong, but you are young, too. Don’t let anyone else break you yet.’

Yuri stares down at his plate as the paper rustles again. There it is: The warning. Yuri’s not stupid enough to ignore it, not when he’s seen and heard first-hand what those glass hearts do to even the best skaters.

‘I’ll try,’ he says honestly. ‘Thank you, Grandpa.’

He finishes his sweet pancakes, everything a little bit lighter in the swirl of his emotions, and goes to pack.

* * *

No one spares him more than two glances in the airport. Yuri can't believe his luck. It’s a little jarring, being part of a crowd instead of the focus of it, but the whole experience leaves Yuri a little giddy. There’s only one tense moment when the studs in his wide leather bracelet set off the metal detector and he has to take it off to go through again. He keeps his arm pressed to his side to hide his mark, feeling horribly exposed, but no one bothers looking at him long enough to notice it. It’s great.

What’s not great is the asshole who not only takes his armrest, but also manages to lean over it and into Yuri’s space and won’t _shut the fuck up_. Yuri knows better than to start yelling on a plane, so he just shoots the most poisonous glares that he can every time his neighbour looks up from his chattering, except he doesn’t seem to fucking get it until it’s been two hours and Yuri finally snaps, ‘I don’t remember getting only half a seat, dickwad.’ The man doesn’t talk to him again after that, and Yuri gets his armrest back, so it’s all a win in the end.

There’s this buzzing that feels like it’s vibrating right under his skin, keeping him from even thinking about taking a nap on the flight. He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous, other than that it’s been weeks since he’s seen Otabek and the last time is a point of shame. It’s Otabek. Just Otabek.

Except Otabek’s never been _just_ Otabek in the way that Viktor Nikiforov turned out to _just_ be Viktor or how Katsuki Yuuri turned out to _just_ be Katsudon or how Jean Jacques Leroy turned out to _just_ be a massive bag of dicks. And yeah, maybe Yuri’s just, just… just a little bit in love with him, but really, he’s just on a trip to visit his best friend because he was in a rut and this is the only thing that seems to be able to pull him out, the chance to see him face-to-face again and fuck! Fuck, no, this isn’t going to end well.


	5. Persian Orange

PART TWO: ALMATY

* * *

* * *

He has a little less time to compose himself than he’d hoped for. He walks into the baggage claim area, his passport clenched in his fingers, expecting to find his bag himself and maybe get a taxi or something after he texts for an address, and finds Otabek standing there with a stupid, tiny smile on his stupid face. He looks like he just stepped off a yacht in his fucking collared, cable-knit sweater, his hands shoved in the pockets of his khakis.

God, Yuri’s _doomed._

‘You aren’t cool anymore,’ Yuri says sourly as jabs Otabek in the chest. ‘What the hell is this, dress-like-a-douche day?’ A dad gives Yuri the evil eye and tugs his daughter away from Yuri, and great, wonderful, children are gross.

‘Good to see you too, Yura,’ Otabek says in deadpan. ‘I’m great, thanks. I hope your flight was comfortable.’

‘Oh, shut up.’

There’s a moment that verges on awkward where Yuri just glares at Otabek and Otabek stares impassively back at him. Then Otabek’s palm twitches towards him and Yuri thoughtlessly takes that as his invitation to step forward and give Otabek the most sterile hug he’s probably ever offered (Granted, the only other person he can remember voluntarily hugging in a good circumstance is _Dedulya,_ so that’s not saying much). _Don’t press in, don’t tuck your face into his shoulder, don’t grip too tightly._ But then Otabek pulls him a little closer, just for a moment, and lets him go to turn to the baggage carousel, leaving him blinking too fast and trying to figure out what the hell that was.

‘How many bags did you bring?’ Otabek asks, like that was no big deal.

‘Just one. It’s…’ He trails off, because Otabek’s already reaching for his bag, and… fine, it’s not that hard to figure out that the leopard print bag is his. Sue him. ‘Yeah, that one.’

They share a long look before Otabek gives him that tiny, half-smile that tugs up at the corner of his lips and Yuri feels like his own grin is splitting his face. This is easy as breathing, once he’s gotten past the confusing jumble of _Is this too much? Is this too awkward?_

‘Hold on,’ he says hurriedly as Otabek turns towards the doors. He slings his backpack off his shoulders, kneeling to unzip it and pull the well-loved orange cat he got from the Grand Prix Final from its depths. The little bell around its neck jingles as he adjusts the ears and brushes it off. He thrusts the stuffed animal at Otabek’s face. ‘Take it. I get your bear, you get my cat.’

Otabek carefully takes it and turns it between his fingers. ‘You love this,’ he says. It’s not a question.

‘Well, yeah, that’s why I brought it. But I like the bear more. He reminds me of you.’

Otabek snorts and looks up. ‘I’ll have a hard time not thinking of you with this. I have a hard time looking at cats at all without thinking of you.’ He tucks it into the crook of his elbow. ‘Thank you.’

Yuri is not blushing, dammit. ‘Whatever. You gonna show me around or what?’

‘Or what,’ Otabek says, and deftly dodges Yuri’s kick.

* * *

 Yuri is somewhat disappointed that Otabek doesn’t have his bike, but he supposes it makes sense. He has no idea how long he can hold both his suitcase and his balance on the back of a motorcycle. However, this brings up a more pressing question.

‘So, did you walk or something, then?’ Yuri asks sarcastically, exercising his English as they spill out onto the street with a handful of other travellers. Otabek doesn’t deign that with response. It’s hard to look cool and dignified when you’re dressed like a rich English boy and you’re carrying a stuffed cat under your arm, Yuri thinks. Otabek catches his pointed gaze at the cat and levels what he’s sure is a look identical to his own at his jacket, then his bag, then back up at him, raising a brow in challenge. _Touché,_ Yuri would say, but fuck you, the leopard print is cool.

He _would_ say that Otabek somehow manages to pull it off. In this sea of people, even dressed as nondescriptly as he is, he’s the most noticeable person in the crowd. Yuri catches himself staring a little bit too long at the lock that’s fallen out of Otabek’s carefully coiffed hair and how it bounces a little with each step. _This is going to be a long week,_ he realises with a sinking, defeated feeling.

‘Otabek!’ someone calls beyond the crowd. Otabek waves casually at the speaker, a short woman with a pixie cut and a cigarette dangling from her fingers leaning against the railing. She’s got a small group of people with her, a couple of whom Yuri thinks he recognises from the eight Instagram photos Otabek has on his account.

‘My friends,’ Otabek confirms in a low voice, and that’s enough; Yuri’s already making a beeline for them to assert his superiority, because _obviously._

Halfway there, a hand claps down on his shoulder and Yuri nearly mauls his would-be assailant, immediately going on edge but catching himself before he does anything stupid. The man chuckles and says something Yuri can't understand.

Yuri pushes at the hand, glaring. ‘Get off me, asshole!’

‘Oh, Russian?’ Yuri gets a glimpse of his face, and, shit. He looks like he pulled himself out of a magazine, all high cheekbones and dark, smouldering eyes and a white smile that Yuri knows uncomfortably well. He’s seen it on the all-too-familiar billboards in the _Zolushka_ -story he tries his best to ignore. It’s a model’s smile.

Yuri knows this guy. He was the one in the picture Mila was mooning over. The one who’s familiar enough with Otabek to get him to post the picture, apparently. And he has a sinking suspicion that he’s…

‘Haha, sorry.’ The man beams at him. ‘I get a little overexcited. Yuri Plisetsky, yeah?’

Yuri narrows his eyes at him. ‘How'd you know?’

The man laughs. ‘There’s only one Russian this fool won't stop talking about.’ He smacks Otabek, who takes the hit in good humour.

‘Yuri, this is Kadyr,’ Otabek says. ‘He’s our ride.’

Yuri eyes Kadyr suspiciously. There’s a look on his face that sets Yuri on edge, just over-enthusiastic and devious enough that Yuri doesn’t think he could trust him with a handshake, much less a drive. But Kadyr loops an arm around Otabek’s neck and mutters something to him in what Yuri assumes is Kazakh that makes the tips of Otabek’s exposed ears go red.

Yuri immediately finds himself on a hunt for Kadyr’s soulmark, his eyes skimming over every bit of exposed skin for a hint of colour. Otabek wouldn't lie to him, right? He wouldn't have said he was still searching if he had a mate, right? He’s not—he’s _not_ a douche, not like how he’s dressed, not like how some of the skaters Yuri ditched in Juniors used to cover their marks and bat their eyes at him like he was a fucking _fairy_ who’d be happy to sleep around with anyone—

Kadyr doesn't put his mark on display, though, and Yuri maybe feels a little bit guilty for suspecting anything because it’s been made very clear before that he has no right to care about this shit. So what if they are mates? Otabek deserves the world over and if he’s happy, fucking _great,_ Yuri’s proud.

‘Yuri,’ Otabek says, and it’s jarring, hearing his real name twice in a row out of Otabek’s mouth. Yuri blinks and realises that they’ve already started walking into the parking lot, the rest of Otabek’s friends chattering and laughing about something he doesn’t get. Great. Otabek’s eyes flicker to his friends before he asks, in English, ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Yuri says after a moment. He jogs to catch up. ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

The girl with the cigarette bumps his shoulder when he catches up. ‘That thing you did with both your arms above your head last December? That was probably the coolest shit I’ve seen in a while. I don’t watch skating, but I saw that one, and damn.’

He puffs up a little at the mention of his jumps in the Grand Prix Final. ‘It’s not that hard if you know what you’re doing,’ Yuri says with a straight face. ‘Unlike Katsuki Yuuri or JJ Leroy, or, I don’t know, Otabek Altin.’

There’s a loud chorus of loud and impressed ‘ooooohs,’ which earns all of them a couple of dirty looks from passerby as Otabek shakes his head, smiling.

‘I don’t know,’ Otabek says. ‘Doesn’t seem that hard.’ The tallest boy in the group laughs and thumps Otabek’s shoulder.

‘I’d like to see you try,’ Yuri fires back.

‘Is that a challenge?’ Otabek raises an eyebrow.

‘Hell yeah it is.’

The girl whoops and throws an arm around Yuri’s shoulders. ‘I like you,’ she informs him with a grin. Then, looking away, ‘I can’t wait to watch this kid kick your ass again, Beks.’

All of them raise a racket again over that. Kadyr and the shorter boy tackle Otabek from behind and ruffle his hair after he tries to escape it, leaving all the gel mussed and sticking up in multiple directions. The tall boy crosses his arms and grins at them as Otabek fights them off, laughing.

‘Men,’ the other girl mutters, and the short one holds her hand out for a fistbump. Yuri catches a glimpse of soft yellow and orange splashed across the back of her hand, the shape of which matches the gold and red mark on the other girl’s exposed collarbone.

It’s weird, seeing Otabek so affectionate with other people. Yuri doesn’t think he’s seen Otabek so much as smile at any of the other skaters. He knows his Beka, the soft one. This one seems almost an extension of him. Beka with the saturation at 200%.

The shorter boy makes a sprint for a black SUV, sliding up on the passenger side door and crossing his arms, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

‘Mature, Denya,’ the other girl remarks dryly. He gives her a shit-eating grin and hops into the seat, slamming the door behind him.

‘All of you?’ Yuri asks as they head towards the car.

‘Yeah. This is the most exciting thing that’s happened all week, Punk,’ the short girl says, socking him in the arm and grinding her cigarette out on the pavement. ‘You’re stuck with us until you go back to the motherland.’

Otabek hangs back with him to help with his bags as his friends pile into the back, shoving each other back and forth and laughing.

‘Sorry,’ Otabek says quietly, raking his mussed hair back from his face in a move that leaves Yuri’s eyes lingering for too long. ‘They’re a lot, I know.’

Yuri doesn’t think he’s heard so much laughter in, like, ever. Skating’s too intense and competitive for this much casual fun unless it’s a banquet, and if he thinks too hard about what’s happened at every event where Viktor, Katsudon, and bottomless champagne have been combined, he might explode with second-hand embarrassment and disgust.

‘Are you kidding me?’ Yuri hisses. ‘They’re so cool, Beka, like maybe 50 times cooler than you.’ He hops in the back of the SUV and vaults to the back seat. The fighting in front of him about who has to move to the last row stops. He grins cheekily back at Otabek until Otabek shakes his head and follows him in.

* * *

 After the cacophony of six enthusiastic Kazakhstani teenagers in a single car for the solid half-hour it takes to get from the airport to Otabek’s flat, the quiet seems all the more hollow once the door clicks shut behind them. He dumps his suitcase in the bedroom Otabek points out at the end of the hallway and collapses onto one of the stools lined up along the kitchen bar. Greedily, Yuri drinks from the tall glass of water Otabek slides him, not realising how thirsty he was until it’s empty.

‘Thanks,’ he mutters into the glass as Otabek leans on the kitchen counter, his sweater’s sleeves pushed up to his elbows and his collar rumpled from the roughhousing. His forearms are turned down towards the counter, but Yuri can see the ever-present licks of red around the edges of his mark, hints of peach and gunmetal grey flashing as Otabek shifts on his feet.

Carelessly, Yuri tugs the tie from his hair, now too long to risk going anywhere without an elastic or two sitting just above his wristband, and shakes it out. It’s not even that late, just past dinner time, but Yuri’s eyes feel like they’re dripping with lead, threatening to drag him down to the floor with sleep if he gives into it. He yawns.

‘Shower’s across from your room, if you want one,’ Otabek says, taking Yuri’s empty glass.

‘Later.’ Yuri presses his wrists into the cold counter to make himself more alert. ‘Half a year we’ve been talking and you’ve never mentioned anyone but Kadyr and your sister. So spill.’

Otabek contemplates for a moment. ‘Kadyr’s the oldest. He's finishing his first year at university. We grew up in the same neighbourhood on the outskirts of the other side of the city. The shorter one’s Denis. We used to skate in the same club until he dropped it. Didn't think he was going anywhere with it. It was a shame, really. Dinara’s the one who likes you so much; Nuralia’s her mate. Dina and I were friends as schoolchildren until I started moving around for skating. We got back in touch last year. And Amir, well.’ Otabek smiles fondly. ‘He’s Iranian. We used to tease him about his formal Russian when he first moved here. He was very uptight, disciplined. We called him Prince Amir.’

Yuri snorts. ‘Lame.’

( _I wish I had something like that,_ he means.)

Then he thinks about it. He does, he realises slowly. He does kind of have something like that. The kids in Juniors were always scared of him; he made sure of that. But there’s the older ones in the end: Mila, who’d taken him under her wing the moment he first set foot into the rink in St. Petersburg. Georgi, who was a dramatic ass but didn’t mind when Mila’d invited Yuri to coffee with them for the first time. Maybe, _maybe_ a little bit Viktor with those coffee meetings, right before Katsudon happened. And maybe a little bit after, too.

_Skating is not your life._

‘Yura?’

‘I’m fine,’ Yuri says automatically.

He fakes a yawn that turns real halfway through and glances around. Everything seems too sterile and neat, like a picture of a flat out of a magazine. The cushions on the dark brown leather sofa are only displaced where he’d leaned on one when they came in. There’s no magazines or books on the hardwood side tables, and there’s only a single picture on the wall of wildflowers in a field on a backdrop of the mountains Yuri recognises from the drive. On the kitchen table sits a single vase with dry, dead flowers drooping sadly towards the wood. Otabek’s shoes are lined up neatly by the door, four of his coats—the leather jacket, his grey overcoat, a black trench coat, a puffier blue winter coat—hanging from the hooks embedded in the wall. They’re really the only indication that anyone lives here at all.

The neatness of it all is a little unsettling. Yuri peels off his jean jacket and throws it over the back of the sofa to fix it, feeling a little like he’s putting a bandaid over a cracked mirror.

‘You’re a little young to be living alone, aren’t you?’ he quips.

Otabek shrugs. ‘My family and I decided that the space was better for all of us. Things seemed forced at home after so long on my own.’ He nods towards the room where Yuri left his suitcase. ‘Amina stays in there when she needs a break from my parents.’ He doesn’t elaborate on that further, and Yuri doesn’t ask. He knows what that’s like.

‘Is she annoying?’

‘Sometimes.’ Otabek taps his fingers on the counter in a rhythm. ‘Sometimes it’s nice to be alone, and sometimes it's not. I’m still a stranger to this place.’ He straightens. ‘A promise is a promise. I’ll take you around if you have the energy for it.’

It sounds like a dare, and Yuri would accept in a heartbeat if he didn't feel the need to collapse in a puddle on the bed in his room. Or not; the floor is starting to look more and more attractive with every passing second.

‘Shower,’ he grunts in answer, and pads off to go use up all of Otabek’s hot water.

* * *

It’s not until he’s out of the shower, his hair smelling like Otabek’s surprisingly poncy shampoo and his skin prickling with the chill of the air, that he spots the little green book propped up between Otabek’s tin of pomade and his soap bottle. Yuri furiously dries his hands on the towel wrapped around his waist and picks the book up with two fingers, flipping through the pages in rapid succession before he snaps it shut. The whole thing’s written in Kazakh Cyrillic so he can barely parse what the words are meant to say, much less what they mean. But the squares of colour next to the words, each varying just a little in shade and hue from the one before, give what this is away immediately. _Dedulya’s_ is under Yuri’s bed at home. The corners of Otabek’s are folded down at the beginning of the reds, the blues, the oranges. The pages are well-worn.

He can see Otabek holed away in here, separated from everyone while he indulges himself for just a few moments in watching the colours on his arm swirl. Maybe he steps out of the shower and wipes the water droplets off of the mark, sitting on the edge of the bath and flipping through the book to find the matching shades while he waits for his hair to dry. Maybe he takes the book around with him in his stranger’s flat, leaving it in random places to find whenever his mate’s mood shifts noticeably. Maybe he’s just casually curious every now and then.

Hurriedly, Yuri puts it back the way it was, tweaking the bottom so that it looks untouched. He’s a snoop, so what? Otabek knows. But this seems sacred, somehow. It almost doesn't feel like he has a right to look at the index unless someone offers. It’s stupid, like being barred from looking through someone else’s dictionary, or maybe their phone book.

Whatever. Whatever! Otabek can have his dumb colour index and enjoy it, just like everyone else.

Otabek’s bedroom door is shut when he steps outside. Yuri can hear his voice rising and falling in cadence with amusement. If Yuri listens closely enough, he can pick out Russian words intermixed with the melodic Kazakh, gibberish to his ears. Curiously, he steps closer, trying to parse together what Otabek is saying from the Russian bits. Something about his bike, a painting? Yuri hears his name at the end of a sentence and presses closer. Then there’s a teasing, pleading ‘Mama’ and quiet laughter that sends Yuri stumbling back from the door and towards his own, tripping backwards over his suitcase on the floor and leaving him sprawled ungainly across the mattress.

18:00 seems like time enough for a nap, he rationalises as he surges up to kick the door shut before collapsing back down again. Then he won't have to think about Otabek and his probably very sweet and overly attentive mother, checking in on her teenage son facing the world all on his own and trying not to worry too much. Yeah. The right kind of mom. Not the kind of mom his Mama is, the kind who sends a generic card every other birthday and doesn't otherwise seem to exist.

His mate’s mark must be saturated in deep, jealous green. Like poison, he thinks bitterly, throwing his arm across his face and not bothering to put on a pair of pyjama bottoms. How toxic is it that he’s jealous of his best friend, the very same friend who sent him a plane ticket to cheer him up? Great, now he just feels shitty.


	6. Royal Purple

Being on the back of Otabek’s own motorcycle is infinitely better than being on the back of a rental. Otabek weaves in and out of evening traffic like the bike is an extension of his own body, humming beneath them like a tame but dangerous beast. It’s a bit like Yuri envisions riding on the back of a panther would feel like right before it turns around and bites his head off. Yuri presses himself closer to Otabek’s back, shoving his linked, cold hands into his sleeves to keep the wind off them. There’s no shame in how tight his grip is, really, because if his hold loosens for so much as a second, Yuri thinks he might get thrown into traffic. That would suck. So. Not a problem.

Almaty is a city of old. It is like St. Petersburg in this way, built in the concrete style of the Soviet era, a little grey on the outskirts of the city but pushing for modernisation towards the centre. Riding through these streets is far different from riding through the old-world streets of Barcelona peppered with its colourful Gaudí architecture. Late April in Kazakhstan is like it is in St. Petersburg, too: Mild enough for someone like him to walk around in a light sweater, but still cold enough to make the wind sting against his exposed skin while they ride.

There’s no point in trying to talk. Even when they stop at the traffic lights, Otabek never explains the landmarks and buildings he passes. Yuri can appreciate that. He knows what Otabek’s trying to show him as they criss-cross through the streets, the snow piles pushed to the sides of the road gone crusty and grey from the spring weather, the buildings growing steadily taller the closer they get to the city centre. This was not an invitation to visit Almaty as a tourist.

They stop when Yuri’s fingers are stiff and the sun has dipped below the horizon, taking with it the warmth of the sunshine. Yuri takes off his helmet, tugs out his ponytail, shoves his hands in his pockets, and waits for Otabek to finish securing his bike, his breath clouding in the steadily chilling air as he admires it from the side.

Otabek steps onto the pavement and holds out his hands impatiently. ‘Give me your hands.’

Yuri pulls them out of his pockets again and Otabek takes them between his hands, the snaps on his fingerless gloves scraping against Yuri’s numbed skin. Otabek brings Yuri’s hands up to his lips and blows on them to drive the cold out, and with each breath, Yuri feels his face get a little hotter. And what the hell, it’s not like he wasn't plastered to Otabek’s back on the way here, but being this close to him in the front is miles different from not being able to see his face. There’s a small crease of concentration between his brows that Yuri wants to rub out with his thumb but wouldn’t dare.

He doesn’t want Otabek to let go when he does. He doesn’t really want Otabek to let go, ever. There’s a weird buzzing under his skin where Otabek’s fingertips brushed against the back of his hand, kinda like he imagines what the static of an empty TV channel would feel like. Otabek takes Yuri’s helmet from him to stick in the bike’s back compartment and leaves him standing there without a word about it, and who does that? He stands in half a daze for a moment before he snaps himself the fuck out of it and bends down to shake his hair out. When he flips it back up, he catches Otabek’s eyes following the path of his hair, and, well.

He makes it too fucking easy for Yuri’s mind to run away, doesn’t he? Stupid Otabek.

‘Hungry?’ Otabek asks, and he’s too calm, dammit. Yuri’s about to have a meltdown.

‘Starving,’ Yuri manages, and he’s quite proud of himself for keeping his voice from wavering. ‘Where are we going?’

They end up at a back table in a restaurant with the mouthwatering scent of sizzling meats wafting through the air, making Yuri’s stomach grumble with hunger. He plucks a cube off one of the lamb shashliks sitting on the platter between them and shoves it in his mouth and _oh my god._ He’s fairly certain the sound he makes is indecent by every society and religion’s standards by the half-amused, half-scandalised look on Otabek’s face.

This is a shock, really. Yuri’s been eating only when _Dedulya_ called him down for breakfast and dinner; everything else had been when he’d remembered that, oh yeah, eating’s a thing that’s important. But even though he’d fly all the way to Japan for good katsudon, then throw himself in front of a train to make sure his grandpa’s _piroshkis_ would be his last meal, food had been optional and tasteless in his mouth for the past few weeks. He’d forgotten it could be this good. He’d forgotten it could _smell_ so appetising. Otabek chuckles as Yuri rips all the meat and vegetables off his skewer with his fingers and devours them without any semblance of Lilia's instilled poise and grace. His skewer clatters on his plate as he shamelessly sucks the grease off his fingertips and looks expectantly at Otabek.

‘What?’ Otabek asks.

‘Don't just stare at me,’ Yuri says loftily. ‘Eat, or I won't touch any more and we’ll just have wasted the whole plate.’

Otabek shakes his head a little and picks one up, pulling the tender meat from the skewer with his teeth and chewing thoughtfully. Satisfied with that, Yuri picks up another one, this time with the telltale smooth texture of kidney meat alternating with slices of onion. He rips into this one with the same degree of gusto and almost dies because _it’s so fucking good._

‘I would have made you a snack if you were this hungry, Yura,’ Otabek comments as Yuri destroys the skewer.

‘I wasn't,’ he says honestly between bites. He catches the odd look on Otabek’s face and points the sharp end of the skewer at the space between his eyes. ‘What’s that for, asshole?’

‘Nothing,’ Otabek says after a moment, turning his gaze back to his food. ‘Don't worry about it.’

Naturally, Yuri worries about it, scrubbing furiously at his lips and chin in case there’s something there and he’s making a fool out of himself. ‘Better?’

‘There wasn't anything wrong,’ Otabek says, glancing back up at him. ‘You look fine.’

Yuri makes an effort to eat a little neater, anyways.

* * *

Their shoulders bump against each other as they navigate their way around a crowd of laughing students and Yuri’s _fine,_ really. The air is crisp, his stomach pleasantly full, and he’s with his best friend in a beautiful city. He couldn’t be happier, right?

Right?

* * *

 It’s maybe two, three in the morning. Whatever. He can’t be bothered to turn his head to look at the clock to check.

There’s a crack in the ceiling that looks like a crooked smile, grinning mockingly down at Yuri. Shitty landlord if Otabek really did just move in, because who rents out a flat to tenants without fixing stuff like that? Who rents a flat with broken pieces and doesn’t say anything about them? He sticks his tongue out at it. The crack continues to beam menacingly at him.

Otabek has curtains, not blinds. When the occasional headlights sweep past the window, the light doesn’t scatter across the opposite wall in stripes like it did in his dorm room in St. Petersburg. This room is a little bigger, but far emptier, like the rest of Otabek’s space: Waiting for someone to fill it with character, to rip the plastic off the packaging. The heating in here is fucked, too; Yuri’s got the blankets pulled up to his chin and he’s still cold.

It’s different, but it’s the same. He’s still staring up at the ceiling in the dark, and the cars still pass outside at stupid hours, and he still traces over the ridges and bumps on his arm in an imitation of a pattern he can’t remember anymore. He draws what he wants instead: Sweeps of colour like silk around a cross, pointed down towards his fingertips. Bright yellow joy. Streaks of silver pride. A green unlike the dark bitterness he knows has graced his mate’s mark, something bright and jewel-toned for hope. Fuschia adoration. Gold determination.

He thinks Otabek is complicated enough that an artist could paint masterpieces with the shades of his emotions.

Yuri rolls over finally, burying his face under the comforter where the lights from outside can’t reach him. There have always been concessions to make in his life, and the first is simple: No matter how much he wants it, he’s not going to find his soulmate. It’s sick to imagine Otabek’s colours where they could never be when they’re probably gracing the arm of someone better. Someone kinder. Someone who didn’t trip and fall head-first off of the cliffs of failure after less than a full season of glorious, glorious victory. He doesn’t have the right to torture himself like this, dammit, not when he has so much more than he deserves by being in this bed at all.

Reluctantly, he drags his sleeve over his arm and covers everything up. If he does that, at least he can pretend he’s just as complete as everyone else.

* * *

 Otabek’s walls are obnoxiously thin, which means that Yuri can hear the stomping at six in the morning and who in their goddamned right mind does that? The knocks on the door are loud and impatient and they don’t stop for a solid minute, which is the time it takes for Otabek’s door to creak open and for his footsteps to get further and further away from Yuri. He drags the covers over his head with a groan in an attempt to muffle the sound.

‘Didn’t I give you a key?’ Yuri hears Otabek ask, his voice creaky with sleepiness.

‘Yeah,’ a much higher voice answers. It moves closer. ‘I forgot it. Why’s my door closed?’

‘Because my friend’s sleeping in there, _maymıl,'_  Otabek says. ‘Remember?’

The girl’s footsteps stop.

‘Oh, is that Yuri?!’ she asks loudly. It takes Yuri a second to place the voice, but then he remembers: Otabek’s little sister Amina, who complained about food off-camera and thought he was pretty.

Right.

Otabek shushes her, but it doesn’t do anything to stop her from dropping something heavy on the floor, and shit, Yuri gives up. He tosses the covers off and furiously finger-combs at his hair, which is now long enough to get tangled when he sleeps, into something that doesn’t make him look like something built a nest in it. He opens the door to the girl he remembered from the Skype sessions standing so close, her nose must have been up against the wood. She’s maybe ten or eleven, dressed in jeans and a winter coat, her dark hair tied back in a long ponytail that brushes her back when she looks up at him and grins.

‘Hi,’ she chirps. ‘Remember me? Do you like the bed? Beka says it’s fine but I think it’s really creaky and stiff and he never listens to me but he _always_ listens to you and oh my gosh you’re a skater, have you been to Medeu yet? Beka, did you take him to Medeu?’

Yuri glances over the top of her head at Otabek, who’s trying to stifle a laugh with the back of his hand. Yuri narrows his eyes at him. Otabek coughs. ‘Mina, it’s six in the morning. Slow down?’

‘Whoops!’ Amina zips backwards, nearly bumping into the wall as she does. ‘Sorry, I’m just so excited to meet you in person! Because, you know, I’ve only seen you on TV and through Beka’s laptop screen and it’s always dark when you guys Skype and Otabek doesn’t ever shut up about you, so I keep imagining all of this stuff about you and I get to find out if I’m right and...’ It devolves into hand-flapping and giggling, and shit, it’s too early for this.

Yuri squints at her. ‘Do you have an off switch?’

Amina giggles. ‘You wish.’ She glances back at Otabek. ‘Can I sleep on the couch, then? It’s just that _Mama_ and _Äke_ are having another party with all of their friends and it’s going to be loud and boring and full of adults talking about stupid things like money and work and I need to study, Beka, school’s important, right?’

Otabek visibly takes a moment to digest what she just said.

‘It’s six in the morning,’ he repeats.

‘Yeah, sorry. I didn’t want to wait. But can I?’ She bats her eyelashes at him.

Otabek sighs and bows his head in defeat. ‘Yes, go ahead.’

She does a fist pump and tosses the duffle bag on the floor onto the couch before padding off towards the kitchen. Yuri watches her start rifling through the fridge, setting a jug of milk on the counter before she starts clattering around in the cupboards.

‘Sorry,’ Otabek says after a moment. ‘Do you mind?’

Yuri shrugs and follows her into the kitchen, holding out a hand for a glass. She hands it to him without looking before grabbing one for herself, and alright, maybe it’s a little cute that she’s so excited to see him. It reminds him a little bit of how he was when _Dedulya_ would come drop a surprise visit at the rink when he was still in Juniors.

‘So what’ve you seen?’ she asks after she’s poured herself a glass and drained it, leaving behind a sheen of white on her upper lip.

‘A lot of shit,’ he says, and then realises that’s probably not the answer she wants. She doesn’t blink an eye at his language, which makes him a little more pleased than he probably has a right to be. He sips at the milk and yawns. ‘The streets. I dunno, just… the city? I met all of his dumb friends.’

‘Liar,’ Otabek inserts, scrubbing a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. ‘You called them cool.’

‘They’re really cool,’ Amina insists, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. ‘Except for Denis. Denis makes weird faces at me and they’re kinda funny but they’re also super dumb, so… Where are you going today?’

‘Medeu,’ Otabek answers, reaching for her glass and filling it again. He slides the jug back towards her. ‘Put it back.’

‘"Please,"’ Amina says, giving him a look, ‘"put it back, Mina, thank you, love you so much."’

‘Who are you, _Äke?'_ Otabek asks dryly. She sticks her tongue out at him and puts the milk away.

‘Beka takes me skating up there sometimes,’ Amina says, leaning in and whispering like she’s sharing a secret as Otabek tilts the glass up to drink and pretends not to listen. It does stuff to Yuri’s insides in that all-too-familiar feeling. ‘There’s a bunch of people all the time but it’s outside and it’s pretty and it’s better than the mall where he started, because that one’s smaller.’ Amina sighs. ‘I’m not very good at it. I like watching it more. When’d you start?’

Yuri shrugs. ‘I skated in a mall too, when I was seven. My grandma thought I should have something to do to distract myself, so after she saw how much I liked it, she signed me up for lessons in Moscow, and then things just… happened.’ _Babushka_ had been there to witness him self-destructing alone while Mama had drifted further and further away, looking to fill the void he’d forced into her life.

‘Cool,’ Amina says with great feeling. ‘Beka, are your friends coming?’

‘No,’ Otabek answers. ‘I’m not telling them where we’re going.’

‘Oh.’ Amina looks crestfallen for a moment. ‘Well, can I come with you, then?’

‘Mina, I was…’ Otabek looks at him and bites at his lip.

‘What?’ Yuri demands.

‘I thought you might want a day without my nosy friends _and family_ butting in,’ Otabek says carefully.

Fuck, this boy is too much. Yes, he wants that too, wants to be the only one to see what Otabek looks like when he’s sharing this secret, his Almaty, his city with Yuri. But Amina’s turned Viktor Nikiforov’s damned puppy eyes on him and wow, if it was effective on a grown ass man, Yuri’s helpless to it on Otabek’s sister’s face.

‘S’not like I'm leaving tomorrow,’ Yuri says. ‘We can do that another time. I wanna show your sister how much better at skating I am than you.’

Otabek shrugs, conceding, ‘We’ll have to take the buses, then.’

Amina does an over-enthusiastic fist pump again and throws her arms around him. Yuri sputters and fights her off until she lets go, giggling.

‘Six in the morning,’ Otabek mutters.

‘Six thirty!’ Amina corrects as she vaults the sofa, the little shit.

Yuri likes her.

* * *

 Yuri hasn’t been to a public skate since he was a kid. He’s certainly never been on the ice when there’s been so many people before, but apparently they’re in on a quiet day. Otabek hands Yuri a pair of rental skates after conversing politely with the visibly excited woman behind the counter and Yuri’s pleasantly surprised to find that the blades are fairly sharp. Rental skates are universally shitty, but he supposes there’s an advantage to being a celebrity in your home country; people do all sorts of favours for the Hero of Kazakhstan.

He waits impatiently as Otabek laces up Amina’s skates for her, tapping his fingers against the doorframe. Otabek holds out his hand for Yuri’s jacket when he’s done and Yuri unzips it, noticing for the first time since he walked in that people are looking at him.

The Team Russia colours probably give him away. Wordlessly, he hands it over and Otabek shoves it and all of their shoes into a locker.

‘Come on!’ Amina whines impatiently, latching onto his hand and dragging him outside.

‘Oi, let go of me, baby hag,’ he snaps, but she just giggles and refuses to let go of him until they’re outside and the crisp mountain air bites into his skin, the Almatinian fog hanging low enough to be stunning but not enough to make them any colder. He actually stops short to stare for a moment to digest how pretty it is, mountains disappearing into the mist on all sides and the rest of it open to the sky. Skating on this must feel like putting on a performance for gods.

When Amina’s not looking, he undoes the snaps on the studded leather cuff around his wrist. This one, the stupid one that set off the metal detector at the airport, was a gift from Viktor—one of many to come, if the remorseful look on his face when he’d handed it to Yuri before he’d gone to Moscow would indicate—and Yuri’s forgiveness is not bought with shit like this, but hell if he’s going to turn down something this cool. And it’s a risk, taking it off somewhere public like this, but the open air makes him feel like he can fly again for the first time since Worlds, and hell if he’s going to let this shackle keep him on the ground. He shoves it under one of the bleachers and fervently hopes no one takes it before he steps past Amina onto the ice.

It’s like coming home after being away for years, even though it’s only been a couple weeks since he was last on his rink. The ice welcomes him like no mother ever has. He does a lazy loop around a group of slow-moving tourists and feels safer doing this than walking on the pavement. He didn’t realise how much he could miss the ice, no matter how much he had disappointed her, how much she had betrayed him.

‘Beka says you can do quadruple toe loops with your arms above your head,’ Amina says when he approaches the gate again. She can hold her balance without wobbling, which is better than a bunch of the people here, so that’s reassuring. ‘I don’t know what that means, but it sounds really cool. Show me? Please?’

Yuri glances back at the people scattered around the rink and finds an empty patch he can make wider if he skates fast enough to scare off the people around them. ‘Dunno. If I fall and you laugh at me, I’ll throw you off the mountain.’

‘’Kay,’ she says, not all that concerned.

He looks over and sees Otabek watching, leaning on the boards with an eyebrow raised. Great, now it’s a challenge, and hell if he’s going to turn that down. He tugs at his gloves before he makes for the empty space, his skates scraping against the uneven surface of well-travelled ice. People get the hell out of the way to gawk, which, fine, if that’s the exchange for enough space to do it without running into anyone, great. He takes a deep breath and stops on the edge of it, bouncing a little on his toes. There’s no pressure here, no points, no medals. Even the gazes of strangers don’t really mean anything. But there’s Otabek’s eyes on his back—Otabek, who’s seen first-hand what it looks like when he flubs this jump in competition.

Deep breath. _Land it, Plisetsky._ He skates, determination coursing through his veins as he envisions it, that Agape: _Reach for the heavens, right where that love comes from, draw it back down with your gravity. Be beautiful, prima._

There’s no one there when Yuri takes off. He is alone in those precious seconds in the air while he pulls his arms up, his nails digging into his knuckles far above his head. Then his blades hit the ice again and he’s upright, his balance steady, and the applause, though from far less people than the audience at any competition he’s been to, is thunderous in his ears.

He did it. He’s not ruined. He could do it again, and land it again, and _win_ again. It takes a moment for him to realise that the person laughing is him, and that feeling warming him from the inside out? It’s victory. He thought he’d never feel it again, and what the fuck ever, so what if it was just one jump? He’s proud as shit!

He holds one arm out for the spectators and tilts his chin up in acknowledgement of their support. Amina claps the loudest, whooping before she skates over to catch him around the waist. He yelps and pushes her off, but she doesn’t seem to mind, zipping off towards where Otabek’s approaching, her voice rising above the general din in too-loud exclamations like, ‘How fricken cool was that, oh my god, Beka, did you see? Did you see?’

‘Yes,’ Otabek says, a little smile on his face. ‘Yes, I did see.’

Yuri grins at him. ‘Easy,’ he taunts. Otabek snorts lightly at that.

Amina bumps Yuri’s shoulder. ‘Race me and Beka?’ she asks. ‘I bet I can beat both of you in three laps.’

‘Oh, you’re on, troll,’ he taunts. ‘Ready, set-’

But the little shit’s already gone. ‘She cheats,’ Otabek says, amused as they watch her swerve around a group of adults. ‘She’ll cut corners, too. Sure you can beat her anyways?’

Yuri tears after her in answer. The laughter comes so much easier now that he’s found his feet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shashliks—Similar to kebabs.  
> Äke—Kazakh for dad.  
> Maymıl—Kazakh for monkey.  
> Medeu—Self-titled ‘The Highest Skating Rink in the World.’ One of Almaty’s biggest tourist attractions, this speed-skating rink is known for its location within the gorgeous Medeu Valley and for being the location of high profile events such as the 2011 Asian Winter Games and the 2017 Winter Universiade.


	7. Russian Green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, everyone, because the storm is here.

He spends the whole morning scrolling on Instagram. The constant pictures of Katsudon that Viktor keeps posting don’t make him want to throw his phone at the wall anymore. He no longer feels queasy when he sees their mushy shit, just… jealous (Hell if he admits that, though). Mila’s visiting her parents in Novosibirsk, according to her geotag; she looks perfectly happy to be away from the rink. Georgi’s new relationship is still intact, and Yuri’s not jealous of that. Georgi’s the kind of person who deludes himself into thinking that every pretty girl who so much as glances his way has a soulmark that looks like his. Yuri’s not that desperate. Yuri can’t afford to be that desperate. _At least he looks happy,_ Yuri thinks bitterly as he scrolls past a picture of Georgi’s girlfriend. There’s Chris Giacometti and his mate, the ice dancer, posing on top of a ski mountain; Katsudon’s annoying friend and his hamsters; another photo of Katsudon, caught without him knowing, laughing at someone off camera.

Yuri’s phone pings with a notification.

_@otabek-altin tagged you in a photo._

It’s a photo of Yuri standing at the bus stop at Medeu, looking off towards the road, his hands shoved in his pockets and his hair blowing a little in the breeze. He looks… not pathetic. Not like he does when he looks in the mirror, not like he knows he did crying on Otabek’s shoulder or bundled up in his blankets in _Dedulya’s_ flat. Majestic, maybe. His spine is straight, his feet planted right; Lilia Alexandrovna would be proud.

It’s Otabek’s ninth total Instagram photo. There’s no caption on it, just Yuri’s handle.

‘This is really fucking cheesy, Beka,’ Yuri says loudly. He can hear Otabek’s muffled laughter through the wall.

* * *

 He pads out of his bedroom with a hairbrush and a request for help on the tip of his tongue when he realises that, while Amina has already packed up and gone home, they’re not alone. Kadyr waves at him from his perch at the counter, flipping a pen back and forth between his fingers while Otabek scribbles at a sheet of printer paper, his lip caught between his teeth in concentration.

‘Morning,’ Kadyr says cheerfully.

Yuri disappears into the bathroom in answer, furiously yanking at the snarls in his hair until it’s somewhat neat before he comes back out. He feels the need to present himself with more care around Otabek’s friends, despite how cool they are. Or maybe it’s because of how cool they are. Whatever.

He comes out and goes for the kitchen cupboard, except that there aren’t any more mugs left and he wants tea, dammit. He glances over at the two of them to see Kadyr’s fingers wrapped around one, steaming from the coffee inside, and the other sitting by Otabek’s elbow as he writes.

‘You only have two mugs?’ he asks.

Otabek shrugs and pushes his towards Yuri. ‘You can have the rest.’

Yuri picks it up without much thought and sips at the still-warm green tea inside. He doesn’t like the look on Kadyr’s face as he does it, eyebrows raised and crooked smile directed at him, so Yuri flips him off and pointedly drains it all. Kadyr laughs at Yuri’s pettiness instead of being offended. He holds his hand out, so Yuri hands him the empty cup and he sets it in the sink.

‘What’s that?’ Yuri asks, peering over Otabek’s shoulder at the gibberish.

‘Brainstorming,’ he says, scribbling some more. ‘What’s the name of that EDM artist from California, the one with the long hair?’

‘Bassnectar,’ Kadyr supplies. Otabek writes down what Yuri assumes is the name. Then they start conversing in that weird mix of words Yuri recognises and the ones he doesn’t, the one Otabek was talking to his mom in; not quite Kazakh, but certainly not Russian, and what’s with all the English ‘cool’s and ‘wow’s anyways?

He gives up and migrates to the couch with his phone. Fuck, why do people keep doing this to him? Even he has the decency to speak English around other people when that’s the only language they share, and he knows for a fact that both of them are fluent in Russian, so what the hell?

Yuri eyes them from his perch on the couch, his fingers clenched tightly around his phone while he puts up some semblance of pretending to still be scrolling on Instagram. Every now and then, Kadyr’s eyes flicker to Yuri and he smiles, carefree and easy in his own skin. It makes Yuri want to strangle him a little bit. He swipes up with his thumb instead.

‘Yuri,’ Kadyr finally says, folding up the sheet of paper and shoving it into his jacket, ‘you’ve never seen this troublemaker in his element, have you?’

‘Kadyr—’ Otabek starts, his brow furrowing slightly.

‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’ Yuri demands, cutting him off and sitting up ramrod straight.

Kadyr grins. ‘Oh, you’re in for a treat, Punk,’ he says, his eyes gleaming with promised mischief. ‘Tell me, have you ever been clubbing before?'

* * *

 No, he hasn’t been clubbing before. Sue him for focusing on his career and wanting to be able to afford to send _Dedulya_ money if his back acts up beyond discomfort, because hell if Mama actually cares enough to pull her head out of the industry’s ass and think of her family, right? But it’d be an outright lie if he were to say he hadn’t actually considered it when the junior level skaters at the rink had plotted ways to charm the bouncers into letting them in to dance. Mila’d even helped him find a fake ID he might reasonably be able to use if he didn’t look like a prepubescent girl on a good day. And if it’s burning a hole in the side of his backpack, so what?

What do people even wear to clubs, anyways? The thing he wore for his exhibition skate, probably, and that’s hanging in his closet in Lilia’s house. At a loss, he just throws on his leopard jacket over his hoodie like he always does and throws himself on the sofa in despair.

‘Beka,’ he whines. ‘Help me..’

Nothing. The flat’s too quiet. Yuri sits up, looking around suspiciously, but Otabek’s bedroom door is open and if he holds his breath, Yuri can't hear anything but the cars outside.

Shit, Otabek must have left without him noticing. How the hell is he supposed to get anywhere? What is he supposed to do?

The answer comes in the form of concentrated badassery when Dinara barges in without warning at precisely 17:00, Otabek’s keys dangling from one hand. After waving and ditching her cigarette at the door, she takes one long look at him, scanning him from head to toe, and snorts. ‘Yuri, come here. I’m going to fix this disaster.’ She gestures vaguely to… all of him, dammit. He scowls.

There’s nothing wrong with this,’ he says sourly, plucking at his jacket.

‘No, nothing wrong at all,’ she says with a straight face. ‘Not unless, you know, you want to get into the big boy club.’

‘Fuck off,’ Yuri says, but there’s not really any bite in it. Obviously she’s right. Dinara grins toothily at him and plops her purse down on the counter.

‘Let me see what you brought with you,’ she says, jostling his shoulder. ‘Don’t look at me like that. How old do you think I am?’

He frowns. ‘What does that have to do with anything? I don’t know, 18, 19?’

‘16,’ she corrects. ‘Don’t look it though, do I? Trust me, I’m an expert with this kind of thing.’

Mildly impressed, he points carelessly to where he’s left his clothes in his bag and spread out on the floor. She digs through his suitcase, wrinkling her nose at his sweatshirt from Japan but making a contemplative sound at the leopard-print t-shirt instead. With a triumphant whoop, she pulls out his black jeans, holds them up, and looks up at him with that same mischievous gleam he saw on Kadyr’s face. It’s unsettling.

‘How tight are these?’

‘I don’t wear loose jeans,’ he says, offended that she would ask in the first place. She looks down at them, humming under her breath, and glances up again.

‘How attached are you to them?’

He narrows his eyes at her and attempts to figure out her motives. There’s something in that look that reminds him of neon pink motorcycles and burnt orange hair, like it’d be a massive fucking mistake to trust her with anything, so hell yeah he’s going to do it.

‘I have another pair,’ he says carefully.

‘Excellent.’ She reaches into her boot and extracts a Swiss Army knife, flicking it open with her thumb. He’s rather proud of himself for not flinching. ‘One last question.’ She grins up at him.

‘How do you feel about eyeliner?'

* * *

 He sprints across the flat when she brandishes a pair of scissors at his hair, but she swears not to do anything drastic and after promising that he can skin her with Otabek’s skates if he isn’t happy, she gets him to very reluctantly sit down and let her do what she wants. After a moment of snipping, she runs a handful of something foamy through his hair and ruffles it, holding bobby pins in her mouth before she braids half of it down the side of his head, fluffing out the layers she’d put into it. Add the swipe of eyeliner and the single coat of mascara he usually only wears in competition to make his blonde lashes visible and—

Well. He doesn't look like a prepubescent girl, anymore.

‘What the hell,’ he says, half in awe as he ruffles the undone side of his hair in the mirror.

‘You’re welcome,’ she says smugly.

She produces a studded leather jacket from somewhere— ’Don't look at me like that, Punk, what he doesn't know won't hurt him—’ that’s a little loose around shoulders but otherwise fits almost perfectly. He’s got boots, his newly ripped jeans, the leopard shirt that’s just a hair too short for his torso, Viktor’s wrist cuff.

‘Good?’ she eyes him and nods. ‘Yeah, good. Come on.'

* * *

 He’s not fucking nervous. No way. He’s cool, he can handle a club, he can look like an adult; it’s not like he hasn’t been earning everything to support _Dedulya_ and himself like his Mama should be doing. It’s not like he hasn’t lived by himself in the dorms for more than half of his life, or that he’s managed his own funds since he turned thirteen, or that he sets up his own doctor’s appointments and raised Potya completely on his own.

So why can’t he stop fidgeting?

He shoves his hands into his pockets. Takes them out again. Tucks his hair behind his hair. Rakes it out again. Shit, he’s trying to be cool, but—

‘Chill,’ Dinara says, swatting at his hand. ‘Deep breath. You’re supposed to be there, okay? And really, you are. Our treat. Breathe, Punk.’

Yuri takes a breath, catches himself, and glares at her. ‘I am calm.’

‘Right. Good.’ Dinara bumps his shoulder. ‘Consider it a taste of Almaty. Our Almaty, not the postcard version.’

They walk the rest of the block, Dinara’s heels clicking against the pavement.

‘Why are you being so nice to me?’ Yuri asks without thinking. ‘You don’t know me.’

She laughs. ‘Kadyr said it earlier. Otabek won’t shut up about you.’ She pauses. ‘Not in the annoying way. Otabek only says what he means, you know? Little things, like how that shirt in the storefront or this person’s cat or that song reminded him of you. “You guys need to meet him someday…” That’s something he’s said at least fifty times. Oh, my favourite: We’re sitting up on the roof of his building, all six of us watching fireworks for Nauryz, and out of the blue he says, “Yuri Plisetsky skates like he has fire in his soul, have you noticed?” And I mean, I'd heard your name a billion times, but I don't know who the fuck Yuri Plisetsky is as a skater, I only watch the skating shit for Beks, but then Nura and I go back and rewatch the recording for you and he’s right, you know. You skate like you’re a phoenix. The ice should melt under your feet.’

Yuri opens his mouth. Shuts it again. Clears his throat. Says nothing.

‘Anyways. I figured if a guy like that is also Otabek’s friend, he must be pretty cool. So don’t worry. Ya look hot, Punk—you’re welcome, by the way—and if anyone gives you trouble, they’re gonna have to fight me. Got it?’

Yuri finds his voice. ‘Fuck that. I dance with knives on my shoes for a living. If anyone wants a fight, I’m gonna rip them to shreds.’

Dinara grins. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’

They walk another block. Half his treacherous nervousness gets wiped away when two girls pass them and stare, clearly interested. One almost runs into a street post. Dinara snickers. Yuri preens all the rest of the way.

* * *

 His I.D. fucking works, which is probably, in retrospect, because it’s Russian. Whatever, he’s not gonna question a good thing. Dinara loops her arm around his elbow and drags him inside after the bouncer stamps her hand and waves them through. Inside, down the stairs and past the heavy curtain, the floor vibrates just a little with the thud of the bass of something that sounds like top 50 dance music (yawn). The walls pulse with blue, red, and purple lights, switching and mixing in sync with the music. Already, it’s a little overwhelming, despite the fact that the majority of the people are far away from him on the dance floor, chattering and laughing and moving in one large, writhing mass.

‘Nura!’ Dinara calls, letting go of him to launch herself at the taller girl. Nuralia catches her in a giggling hug before she waves at Yuri, her silver bracelets flashing in the lights, and pulls Dinara into the crowd to dance. Yuri watches them go with his old friend Jealousy by his side, a flash of it shooting through him like a red-hot bullet.

A low whistle snaps him out of it. He whips around to find the source, ready to rip the owner a new one until he realises it’s not a gross stranger; it’s Kadyr. He waves at Yuri from his perch at one of the taller tables with Denis and Amir, each holding different drinks. Kadyr’s is a beer, Denis’s is something bubbly, and—Yuri squints in the dark—Amir’s either drinking a pint of straight vodka, which, what the fuck, or that’s water.

‘You clean up nicely, Yuri,’ Denis comments.

‘What, you don't think I look nice all the time?’ Yuri asks, narrowing his eyes at Denis. The Kazakhstani boy blinks and grins.

‘Ah, you caught me. I think I’m in love, Amir.’

Amir snorts into his glass, his hand over his chest.

‘Don't worry; you’ll always have a piece of my heart,’ Kadyr interjects, throwing an arm around Amir’s shoulders. ‘I love you, man.’

‘You’re wasted,’ Amir says dryly, holding up his glass. Kadyr rolls his eyes and takes a long sip before slamming it back on the table. Amir glances over at Yuri and shrugs. ‘He’s all chummy now, but don't get him started on Roxane—’

‘Roxane?’ Yuri demands.

‘Ahhh, Roxane, my heart, my soul,’ Kadyr croons, his cheeks flushed. ‘I miss her so much. She claims my thoughts, my words, my dreams. So beautiful, she outshines the stars. So smart, she’s gonna take over the world—’

‘Fuck, no, that wasn't an invitation to get started,’ Denis complains, clapping a hand over Kadyr’s mouth a little too late. Kadyr giggles, muffled, against his palm. Denis gives Yuri a long-suffering look. ‘Roxane’s French. This asshole’s trying to transfer to _La Sorbonne_ next year and leave all us poor bastards behind for true love.’

‘Soulmate?’ Yuri asks, trying not to sound too interested.

‘Yep,’ Amir says. ‘Gone on her the moment they met, too. Disgusting, but cute, you know?’

Something loosens in Yuri’s chest. Relief (shameful), maybe. The jealousy recedes just a little. ‘Where’s Otabek?’ he demands.

‘Otabek, Otabek, Otabek,’ Kadyr says, then giggles again. He points vaguely behind the DJ’s dais. ‘Getting ready, probably. Want something to drink?’

Yuri’s confidence feels like it would right before he steps on the ice. Maybe it’s the tug of the braid along his scalp, the daring vulnerability of low-hanging jeans and that strip of skin between them and his shirt, the flick of eyeliner at the corners of his eyes. The floor is sticky under his boots, the temperature sweltering from so many people; he strips off his coat and nods resolutely. ‘Yeah, I fucking do.’

Denis grins, taking Yuri’s coat from his hands and shoving it at Amir. ‘Kadyr,’ Denis calls, slinging an arm around the older boy’s shoulders. ‘Come on, let's give our Russian friend something to remember, eh?’

‘Or forget,’ Kadyr says cheekily, and giggles again as they waltz off to the bar.

Amir rolls his eyes again and gets up to throw Yuri's—Otabek's—jacket over his stool. ‘DD,’ he says in explanation, tilting his pint glass towards Yuri, and yeah, that makes a little more sense. Straight vodka, what the hell. At the look on Yuri’s face, Amir smiles and sips primly at his water. ‘I’m from a Muslim family. Not as strict as my parents about being _around_ alcohol, but drinking isn't gonna happen. Your things are safe with me.’

Yuri is not in the least reassured. He hops onto the stool next to Amir, keyed up with anticipation and the thrill of the illegal. Amir holds himself like a prince, Yuri thinks, eyeing his straight spine and the tilt of his chin, despite looking wholly relaxed. Well, two can play at that game. Yuri leans his elbows on the table and arches his back just a little.

Kadyr and Denis come back, Kadyr bearing something that looks almost exactly like what Denis was drinking in one hand and a shot glass in the other. He sets both on the table, managing to do it without spilling, and grins stupidly at Yuri. ‘How do you hold your alcohol?’ he asks bluntly.

Yuri looks at the bubbly drink suspiciously. ‘What’d you do to it?’

‘Nothing. Yet. Answer the question.’

Yuri’s getting bad flashbacks to Katsudon and the stripper pole that Giacometti pulled out of thin air. He grimaces and pulls the glass closer, holding it protectively out of Kadyr’s reach.

‘You’re welcome,’ Kadyr says wryly.

Yuri takes a tentative sip of the drink in his hand. It’s… not that bad. The burning sensation that vodka leaves on the back of his throat is notably absent, replaced instead by something light and minty. He takes a longer sip of it. ‘Thanks,’ he says a full minute too late, because that thought-to-mouth thing seems to be malfunctioning in the absence of having anything to be mad about. Kadyr tilts his half-empty beer at him before downing the rest of it in one long gulp.

Before he knows it, Yuri’s lifting the glass to his lips and there’s nothing left in it. With a small flare of annoyance, he sets the empty glass down and oh, yep, there’s that world-spinning feeling already.

‘The hell was in that?’ he asks, and Denis snorts.

‘Lightweight,’ he teases.

Yuri bristles. ‘I’m _not._ Give me that.’

Denis slides him the shot and he swallows it in one go. Ah, there’s that horrible burning; he does his best not to cough and mostly succeeds.

‘I’m bored,’ Kadyr declares as Yuri sets the empty glass down. ‘Come dance with me, Yuri, I wanna see if you’re any good on normal ground.’

‘Was that a fucking challenge?’ Yuri asks, already off the stool. Kadyr gives him his stupid puppyish grin and melts into the crowd with a laugh, joining them in their generic bumping and grinding. Yuri’s matching smiles feels to him like a lion’s roar, a fight for dominance that he will win this time, no matter what. He is a fucking star, and Kadyr is no Katsudon, surprises wrapped up under layers of pathetic whimpering and crippling anxiety. Yeah, he’s fucking cool, but Yuri’s best friend material times a thousand. Clearly, this can only be settled on the dance floor.

There’s too many people and not enough floor space for a proper dance off, but they try anyways, much to the reappeared Nuralia and Dinara’s delights. Ballet’s grace is second nature, coiling like a snake in his limbs and, fuelled by whatever the hell was in that drink, he’s a fucking god among men. If being a fairy means he’s better than everyone else, then yes, he’s a fairy, weaving magic with his fingertips and fucking crushing everyone who’s going to try to beat him in a dance-off—

Fuck, okay, he’s a little drunk.

The music shifts from the repetitive music to a mix with a thudding beat, maybe fifteen times better than the track before. Over the entire club’s cheer, Yuri can hear Denis whooping. Kadyr concedes their competition with a shrug and a bow before he turns to face the DJ table, his hand raised as he bobs to be beat. Yuri throws up his own hand in victory, that anticipation building at the base of his throat, because with a music shift like that, it can only mean there’s a new DJ behind the table, and…

Well, fuck.

Otabek is Janus, Hecate, Triglav, Svantovit. There’s no other explanation for how on earth he can go from motorcycle gang member to geek in a pirate costume to Viktor Nikiforov with a limitless credit card to fuckboi with a yacht to whatever fucking torture this is. The purple lights bouncing off of Otabek’s skin throw his jaw into sharp relief, highlighting the tops of his collarbones where they peek out from the low neckline of his tight black shirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Whatever he’s got on his face makes Yuri think of Lilia’s lessons on the elegant use of chiaroscuro in the art hanging from her walls; Yuri can’t tear his eyes away from Otabek’s lashes against his skin. The way Otabek bites his lip in concentration, his brow furrowed like DJing is as strenuous as skating, the flick of his wrists as he works before he gazes out into the crowd… it’s magnetic. Almost as mesmerising as the music itself. And it’s really fucking hot.

Otabek wears his mark like a tattoo, a point of casual pride as his fingers flip switches and turn dials that Yuri can’t see from his spot on the ground, the people in front of him taller and bouncier and absolutely fucking in his way. He pushes up to the front, all thoughts of Otabek’s friends forgotten as he cranes for a better look at Otabek. In his element, Yuri remembers, and yeah, Kadyr wasn’t lying. There’s an ease to Otabek in front of this club of intoxicated people, their attentions riveted on their talented DJ, that Yuri has never seen before. Otabek’s hips sway just a little to his own beat, lost as he is in his song, and Yuri is hypnotised by it.

Or maybe it’s the alcohol. Whatever.

Otabek catches his eye. There’s a moment where Otabek’s smouldering hotness drops like a mask from his fingertips, revealing behind it a white smile, boyish and excited like Yuri has never seen it before. Otabek looks, for a second, like a boy presenting his parents with a particularly colourful drawing.

 _(Look, Yura,_ it says. _Isn’t this cool? Are you proud of me?)_

Yuri gives him a vehement double thumbs up in answer.

Kadyr, Nuralia, Dinara, and Denis find him eventually, whooping and hollering to the visible annoyance of some of the asshats around the table. Otabek rolls his eyes at them before he immerses himself in the music again, dropping off into his own world in front of their eyes. It’s mesmerising to watch, and it shows in his music and how invested most of the club is in dancing along to it, including Yuri.

He doesn’t even notice the girls trying to sneak closer to the dais’s stairs until Nuralia points them out from behind him, an arm thrown over his shoulder.

‘You like big cats, don’t you?’ she asks, her voice surprisingly low and sultry for her babyish face. She picks at the sleeve of his leopard-print shirt. ‘Very territorial. Fend them off your den, eh? Beks’ll appreciate it, big time.’

‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’ he asks. She gives him a sharp grin that reminds him of Mila in the midst of a scheme before she lets him go to dance with Dinara, flicking her hair over her shoulder and laughing.

Fucking Kazakhs.

Yuri pushes his way past the girls giggling at the base of the stairs, trying to get their numbers down on slips of papers under the simple question he’s seen in every form of flirting on the planet: _Soulmate?_ Fuck that. There’s no shyness in his body, not when any suggestion of it has been completely replaced by alcohol, and Nuralia’s right. Seeing the look on the closest girl’s face as she leers at Otabek makes him want to drop kick her in the face.

He’s too drunk to figure out _how_ Nuralia knew that’s how he would react. He’ll think it through later.

Otabek spots Yuri at the stairs and waves him closer, his expression less childish and more inviting. Yuri feels like he’s on the top of a podium up here, watching the crowd beneath them dance and cheer and sing. It’s reassuring. For some reason, it makes more sense than anything Lilia or Viktor has ever said: Yuri is not at his end. There will be more podiums, and he will rule them all with a fucking golden crown on his head. It’s the way he feels standing here next to Otabek in this spot he has won from the rest of the world. He never, ever, _ever_ wants to let it go. Victory is as addictive as a drug, and one bad trip isn’t going to stop him from running after it like a starving man.

He looks one of the girls in the eyes, daring her to step closer, and slides his arm around Otabek’s waist.

Otabek freezes for a moment, too short for Yuri to register and rip his hand away—what the hell, what the hell, what the _fuck_ did he do that for—before Otabek transitions smoothly into the next track and slings his arm around Yuri’s neck, throwing his hand up into the air. The crowd roars with approval, re-energised, and Yuri laughs, letting him go to dance.

* * *

 Time feels fluid like this. It could have been five minutes or five hours since he got up there, but before he knows it Otabek’s stepping back from the booth, his laptop tucked under his arm. Nuralia slips past him, pushing her own laptop in his vacated spot, and winks at Yuri.

‘Get off my lawn, boys,’ she says.

Otabek rolls his eyes and playfully bumps his shoulder against Dinara’s as she passes him to take up Yuri’s spot in the corner. They hop off the dais, Otabek detouring to tuck his laptop in with the cords and electrical panelling behind the dais’s roped off section before he rejoins Yuri, filling the empty space beside him like he belongs there. As Otabek curls up the cord to his headphones and shoves it into the pocket of his jeans, Yuri spots Kadyr and Denis creeping up behind him, and for some reason, after Kadyr catches Yuri’s eye, he gives him a thumbs up and tugs Denis back into the crowd. They disappear into the masses.

‘What?’ Otabek asks, following Yuri’s line of sight.

‘Nothing,’ Yuri says. He shakes the confusion off, but it sticks to him like the floor under his boots, refusing to let go completely. ‘Nothing, nothing, just dance with me, ‘kay?’ Is that English? Russian? Who knows. But Otabek seems to get it, because he takes Yuri’s hand and pulls him into the crowd after where Kadyr and Denis disappeared.

Yuri hates crowds. He hates being so close to other people where they can touch him and he can’t stop him because there are _too many fucking people_ to make a difference. But whatever this is pushes that need to flee to the side, because it turns out he doesn’t mind being this close to people if ‘people’ means ‘Otabek Altin.’ The press of people all around them forces him close enough to see that, yeah, Otabek’s wearing eyeliner, smudged out around the corners of his eyes. There’s a hint of gold along his lashes. He points this out. Otabek shrugs, maybe; it’s hard to tell. Otabek gestures to Yuri’s eyes; Yuri just flashes a sharp grin at him.

The music shifts. It fills Yuri with all sorts of feelings he can’t be bothered to attempt to name. His blood is singing with what feels like illegal desire. Otabek is too much in his tight jeans and his t-shirt, his headphones and his fucking ability behind that table. Yuri’s high on adrenaline, fuelled by alcohol. He could conquer the world and grant wishes, dive to the bottom of the ocean and meet God up in the clouds. It’s the easiest thing in the world to bump Otabek’s hips in a slow roll, meet his smile with a dare in return, and—

Yuri has been drunk before. More than once. And every time it’s happened, it’s been the same: He does things before he can stop himself, but they’re all things he’s wanted to do sober. It’s why he kissed Anna Kosygina, despite not caring for her in the least, after the Russian Nationals two years ago, when the entire Junior division of Russian skaters had smuggled a four litre bottle of vodka into one of their hotel rooms and passed it around until it was empty. He just wanted to try it, and then he had. They silently agreed to forget it in the morning for the sake of her mate. Would he have done it sober? No, what the hell? He wasn’t so naive to believe that anything could have come out of two thirteen-year-olds when he had a fake mourning band wrapped around his arm. Did he mind that he’d done it? No. Not at all.

He doesn’t think before he acts while drunk. Nobody does; it’s a fucking given. So he thinks he might be forgiven for this act that makes complete sense when he pulls back panting, Otabek’s eyes wide with shock and his lips red under the lights. Yeah, total sense. Did it happen? Did it not happen? He’s not really sure, so he doesn’t think too hard about it. It’s easier to just keep dancing.

He probably imagines Otabek’s quiet ‘oh.’ It’s too loud in their little claustrophobic bubble for that to have been real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned in [this Tumblr post](http://starkysnarks.tumblr.com/post/154282821426/kazakhstan-101-or-how-to-otabek), Otabek speaks Shala Kazakh to his friends and family. Hence the confusing mix of Russian and Kazakh that Yuri gave up trying to understand.  
> Nauryz—Kazakh New Years celebration. Begins March 21st and lasts for days. [X](http://visitkazakhstan.kz/en/about/145/)  
> Janus, Hecate, Triglav, Svantovit—multi-headed/faced gods. Janus is Roman, Hecate is Greek, Triglav and Svantovit are Slavic.  
> La Sorbonne—a nickname for the Paris-Sorbonne University, which replaced the original University of Paris (the Sorbonne) two years after its closure due to student protest.
> 
> Want more tidbits on Otabek's friends? Check out [this post!](http://russianfeya.tumblr.com/post/158593272162/otabeks-friends)


	8. Oil Black

Is it possible to be a bigger jackass than JJ Leroy?

This is the question that plagues him the moment he wrenches his eyelids open and he’s faced by that damned crack in the ceiling, grinning knowingly down at him. His mouth tastes like Potya stuck his tail in it while he was sleeping, and the metal of his button is digging painfully into his stomach. He touches his legs to confirm it, and yep, he fell asleep in his clothes. Gross.

No headache, though. That’s good. He rolls over and presses his face into his pillow, groaning quietly into it anyways because fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck, what did he do?

There’s no way he can show his face to any of them again.

Time to pack up and get the hell out of here. Maybe throw himself off the roof while he’s at it. What he did was vile, vulgar, embarrassing, completely uncalled for; the list goes on. He is the worst of the worst. There’s a reason people like him are supposed to keep away from situations where they could lose their senses and do really stupid shit, like, like…

He can’t even think about it without wanting to throw up.

He is the worst friend. He wants to crawl into a hole and let them bury him for shame. What if Otabek’s soulmate knows? They might figure it out somehow. They might already know. Do they know? Does he actually care? Or is the guilt curling down low in his stomach something else entirely?

He shifts and feels the bear squished under his arm and curls around it, closing his eyes again and burying his nose into it.

He remembers it too clearly. Far, far too clearly. He remembers the floor vibrating under his feet, people pressed up against him on all sides, Otabek’s chest up against his, the glimmer of his gold eyeliner, how soft his lips felt against Yuri’s. It does something not altogether that unpleasant to his blood, setting it to boiling in the best way. Little schoolboy crush his ass—he’s gone right off the edge of the cliff. He has to confront it now. There’s no lying to himself anymore, not when the consequence is probably still sleeping in the room on the other side of the wall.

He asks himself the question again: Is it possible to be a bigger jackass than JJ Leroy? Because it feels an awful lot like the answer is fuck yes, you piece of shit.

If he ever gets the chance to meet Otabek’s soulmate, he’s going to have to look them in the eye and know that he kissed their mate. While drunk. In a club. Illegally. In front of hundreds of people. He can imagine it now, drawing up an image of the mate in his head: Someone like Nuralia, but shorter, more delicate. An ice dancer, maybe. Pretty, long hair, glossy and dark. Large eyes. Glasses, perhaps, and the brain of a genius, like Kadyr’s Roxane. Witty. Snarky. Perfect; the only kind of person Otabek deserves and must surely have as a mate. Yuri can imagine the look on her face when she learns that he was the one who stole Otabek’s first kiss before her, because there’s no way the Hero of fucking Kazakhstan would have done that with anyone else while he was waiting for his mate.

Fuck.

He hurls the bear blindly at the wall. It hits it with a satisfying thunk, which would be great if he hadn’t forgotten that Otabek’s walls are fucking paper. He freezes when he hears the rustling on the other side, his heart pounding in his chest because if, on top of assaulting Otabek, he _also_ woke him up for no good fucking reason, then Yuri has cemented his position as Emperor Asshole.

He listens. When there’s no more sound, the tension in his limbs lessens just a little. He gets up to retrieve the bear and dust it off. What the fuck, that was the most disrespectful thing he could have done to something he treasures, and why? Because he’s so pissed he might explode from it.

There’s anger in all parts of his life. It is one of the things he hates about himself. Yuri wishes that he wasn't defined by his anger, but he is. Always, the first impression he makes on people is that he is a rabid, furious creature, biting and hissing like a wild animal. He hates that his fury is who he is on the surface, because he cannot express that he is human underneath all of the red.

‘Your father is the same way,’ Mama had told him once, a cigarette dangling from her fingertips and a sneer marring her pretty face. ‘It’s not a problem, _kotenok.’_ She’d laughed and sipped at her drink and gone off for a photoshoot and Yuri had curled up under the kitchen table, tried not to let the anger course through his veins like fire, and mostly succeeded. The self-hatred was potent enough to take its place.

He knows why people like Kadyr, Dinara, Nuralia, Denis, and Amir don’t have his problems. He can’t hate them for growing up the right way. At least they have fucking boundaries. He bets Dinara and Nuralia have only ever kissed each other, that flirty Kadyr didn’t do a thing with anyone else but fantasise until he met Roxane. He bets that Amir has enough fucking class to fill a boat, that Denis has too much fun with every other aspect of his life to care. Why can’t Yuri be like that? Why can’t he forget about the shit carved into his arm and live for the skating, his friends, cats? There are so many other things for him to fixate upon, but his fucking obsession with soulmates and Otabek will ruin him forever.

He’s no better than his father if he keeps going this way.

Eugh, the taste in his mouth is getting worse by the second. His self-loathing swirling like a cloud of poisonous smoke in his head, he stomps off to brush his teeth and untangle the braid from the side of his head.

* * *

 Otabek hands him a cup of coffee like nothing fucking happened before he turns back to the machine for his own cup. He’s tapping his foot against the ground to a beat in his head. Yuri stares incredulously for a moment too long before he shrugs and plops into a bar stool. He takes a sip of the coffee, expecting something grossly over-sugared, but… it’s… perfect?

‘Are you a fucking psychic?’ Yuri grumbles into it, taking another gulp. ‘Or is your superpower that you can just figure out what people want to drink?’

Otabek shrugs, turning back to face him with his own steaming mug. ‘Lucky guess. Are you feeling okay?’

Aha, the skip of a heartbeat in his chest. This is where they talk about it, isn’t it? This is where Yuri is forced to pour his fucking heart out on the floor before he slinks back to Russia with his tail between his legs, the best friendship of his life dissolved in a moment of stupidity. He’d rather pour his coffee all over his feet.

‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘Fine. I swear. I’m fine.’

Otabek gives him a look that says, _Yes, if you say it three times, it makes it more true._ But then he looks down at his coffee, takes a sip, and shrugs. ‘Sorry if I wasn’t any help, then. Nura snuck me a beer and a few shots while I was getting my kit together. Everything was a fuzzy blur after my set.’ He points his spoon at Yuri. ‘I do remember that you’re just as good on the dance floor as you are on the ice, though. And I assume Amir got us home. What else happened?’

Yuri’s heart settles back down out of his throat with pure relief. ‘I dunno. I don’t remember anything.’ Take it, take the lie, go on, _please._

‘Hm.’ And that’s as good as he’s going to get, isn’t it? No more questions, no more prodding… This is why he likes Otabek. This is what he’s forgotten. There’s no need to explain himself, over and over, no need to reword his jumbled shit. Otabek lets things go like they’re dead leaves instead of heavy weights.

‘Go on a run with me?’ Otabek asks, taking their empty mugs and setting them in the sink.

‘Yeah, sure,’ Yuri says.

And that’s that.

* * *

 There’s a knock on the door when Otabek’s in the shower, the pipes rattling in the walls in a repetitive cycle that feels almost soothing. Yuri pulls himself upright from where he’s lounging on Otabek’s sofa, the new leather creaking along with the murmuring of the television in the background right as the locks shift and the door opens to Kadyr. Kadyr grins at him and holds up the plastic bag in his hand.

‘Hey, Yura,’ he says cheerfully. ‘Brought you and the man of the hour some lunch.’

Right. Right. The exclusive rights to Yuri’s diminutive don’t just belong to Otabek; that would be weird. Easy to forget when you ignore all of your Russian friends for a month.

‘He’s in the shower,’ Yuri says unnecessarily. Kadyr drops the bag on the coffee table and plops onto the sofa next to him, crossing his legs and smiling at Yuri with a look that makes him want to either hiss or flee. Or maybe both.

‘What?’ he demands.

‘Did you have a good night?’ Kadyr asks.

Yuri simultaneously feels his ice freeze in his veins and his brain’s main setting switch to defensive, angry fucking red.

‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’ he asks, sitting ramrod straight.

Kadyr chuckles and waves his hand at Yuri. ‘Simmer down, Punk. I only meant if you slept well. You were, er, kind of drunk.’

Yuri backs down. ‘That sounds like a lie.’

‘Yeah, you were blasted,’ Kadyr agrees easily. ‘Sorry. We probably shouldn’t have let you drink so much.’

‘It was two fucking drinks,’ Yuri says, with little bite. ‘And I knew what I was doing. I’m not a baby.’

‘I know,’ Kadyr says. His eyes flit towards the bathroom. ‘Hey, listen, man—’

‘Don’t say it,’ Yuri says too quickly, his stomach dropping.

‘Say what?’ Kadyr asks gently.

Yuri can’t voice it.

Kadyr tilts his head a little. ‘Look, I’ve known Beks for most of my life. I know that boy better than he knows himself, and he’s never, ever, had a friend he cares about as much as you. What he has with you isn’t something I understand. Otabek’s like my brother. With you, he’s something else.’

Yuri swallows thickly.

‘If you ever want to talk about something, like, anything, I’m your man, okay?’ Kadyr leans back on the arm of the sofa.

They sit in silence that should be uncomfortable, but it’s not. Not in the least.

‘He’s a good guy,’ Kadyr says finally.

‘Yeah,’ Yuri agrees. ‘Too fucking good.’

Kadyr grins at him. ‘He’s an asshole. But… yeah. He is.’

Comfortable quiet.

‘Yura,’ Kadyr stops. Starts again. ‘Yuri, what happened to your soulmark?’

Oh.

Shit.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he says instead of screaming, crying, throwing something, or all of the above. His voice is surprisingly steady.

‘Shit, sorry. You don’t have to.’ Kadyr takes his feet off the sofa. ‘But it’s not there anymore, right?’ Yuri looks at him, betrayed. Quickly, Kadyr adds, ‘Beks didn’t say anything. You lost your bracelet up on the platform. Nura found it when she was packing up her kit, and when we gave it back, I saw. Promise it was nothing else.’

Yuri tugs his knees up to his chin and says nothing. He doesn't know what he’s supposed to say. No one’s ever found out by accident but Viktor, and Yuri had been twelve then; Viktor had handled it, for once in his life, like an adult.

‘So it means you don't have the certainty of knowing,’ Kadyr says after a moment. ‘And honestly? I think, in a way, that makes you better than us.’

Yuri looks at him in disbelief.

‘You keep your eyes there.’ Kadyr points towards a window. ‘Not here.’ His hand drops to Yuri’s wrist. ‘And with it, you can do so much more than the rest of us. And yeah, maybe if you do ever find your mate, you won't ever know for sure if they’re yours. But you’re also free to choose anyone. Test the waters for yourself. Find someone you want to be with, and if it turns out later that you’ve changed and they’ve changed, it’s okay for you to part. There’s nothing chaining you to them.’ He puts a hand on his chest. ‘I want to believe I’ll love Roxane forever. I know in my heart that I will. But I also know that her parents are mates but they can hardly look at each other. The system isn't perfect. Maybe someday it’s true that they’re destined to reconcile their differences, but right now, it’s tearing their family apart.’

Yuri knows what that’s like. He’s lived in a house with Lilia Alexandrovna and Yakov tiptoeing around each other, stepping on old cracks and ripping open old wounds but managing to coexist. He has seen Yakov silently weeping out on the porch when he thinks no one can see him. He knows Lilia’s hurt through her strictness. He’s locked himself in his room when the yelling and screaming got too loud, an unpleasant reminder of when the closet in Moscow was too small to keep his father’s voice away from him. And sometimes he finds them holding hands, pressing their marks together and leaning on each other as they sleep on the couch, Lilia’s old movies playing silently in the background.

‘I believe in things working out in the end,’ Kadyr finishes, right as the pipes fall silent. ‘I think you should talk about the things you want. You have a right to them as much as the rest of us. But don't worry.’ Kadyr rises, shoving his hands into his pockets. ‘Your secret’s safe with me, Punk. Promise.’

‘What secret?’ Yuri demands. Kadyr shrugs, but true to his word, says nothing when Otabek emerges from the bathroom, only a towel wrapped around his waist while he dries off his hair with another. Yuri catches himself staring and looks very resolutely instead at the plastic bag on the coffee table.

‘Hey,’ Otabek says in English, holding up his towel in greeting. Kadyr slips into their weird hybrid Kazakh and the two of them chuckle while Yuri sinks lower and lower behind the couch cushion, wishing he could disappear into it.

The door clicks shut and Yuri pretends to be sleeping while Otabek comes around to the coffee table. The sofa dips as Otabek sits at the other end, picking up Yuri’s feet and setting them back down in his lap while he investigates the food. Yuri cracks a lid open to watch.

Then the smell of it hits him and he sits up, holding out a hand impatiently. Otabek looks at him and pointedly eats a mouthful fried rice before he smirks and passes it over. Yuri leaves his feet in Otabek’s lap as Otabek reaches for another container. Otabek doesn't push him off. No point in moving, then.

He wishes he could hate Kadyr, but Kadyr’s just too fucking _nice._ He has to get angry, he has to blow up with frustration like everyone else, but it seems impossible. But Kadyr knows, too; Kadyr, who’s known Otabek far longer than Yuri has, who has a cherished soulmate and a default expression of a smile. As he eats his rice, Yuri gets caught on Kadyr’s words, which are the kind of bullshit he’s now expecting to come out of Viktor’s mouth if Yuri ever allows himself to get cornered again. But it makes sense from Kadyr. If anyone has the authority to speak about Otabek, it’s him.

Yuri knows that he can’t truly learn everything about a person in a week. God knows he has his secrets. Guiltily, he glances up at Otabek, who doesn't seem to notice. But it’s been three fucking days and he gets it, why Otabek holds Kadyr on such a pedestal. Yuri can bitch all he wants, fuck up over and over again, but as long as Otabek thinks he’s worthy of friendship, Kadyr will treat him kindly.

He’s never felt security like that before, and it makes his guilt build like snowdrifts just waiting for the avalanche to begin. He has to say something. Anything.

Later.

Yuri scrapes at the bottom of his container and glances at Otabek again. Otabek looks relaxed. Their eyes meet. Otabek smiles and flicks a grain of rice at him. This little bubble they’ve created where they can sit close and eat food and not talk is heaven on a platter.

* * *

Today’s a lazy day. Yuri gets the feeling that Otabek is just as clueless as he is when there’s no skating to be done, no routines to plan, no competitions to sweat over. Otabek pulls out a book from his room, something stuffy and old and pretentious that Yuri doesn't bother looking at while he turns on his phone, tucks his knees up to his chin again, and checks his Instagram feed.

Otabek’s picture from yesterday has too many comments. Most of them are strings of heart emojis from Yuri’s Angels and questions he doesn't want to answer. Viktor’s only left _!!!!!!!!_ as his comment. Mila’s left a winking face.

He glances up at Otabek and his stupid book and his fingers turning the pages before he gets a really bad idea.

Otabek has a little sister. Otabek’s little sister possesses two very important things: 1. Long hair, and 2. Enough trust and reliance on Otabek to show up without warning and spend the night when being around their parents is too much. Yuri’s abilities in schoolwork are mostly laughable, what with cramming in his education in between training sessions and competitions from tutor to tutor, but he’s not stupid. It’s easy to piece together that Otabek was probably a very attentive older brother when he could be home for her, and, from what Yuri knows from the girls in Juniors, girls like when other people do their hair.

There’s a boundary line that Yuri used to stand on, wavering this way and that. The boundary line is long gone now, whether Otabek knows it or not. Yuri keeps pushing, and Otabek keeps giving, so it can’t really be that big of a deal until Otabek stops him, right? Right? These are things he would know if he cared about all of that soulmark etiquette (or etiquette at all). But if he pretends this is just a friendly request and it means nothing at all except something for them to do to pass the time, then it’s fine, right?

‘Beka.’ He glances over at him. ‘Do you know how to braid hair?’

‘Yes. Why?’ Otabek slides a bookmark between the pages anyways, because yeah, Yuri’s kind of obvious.

‘I want to put it up and I don’t know how. Lilia Alexandrovna always does it for me for competition. Dinara did it for me yesterday.’

Otabek disappears and comes back with Yuri’s hairbrush, plucked from the bathroom counter. He stands at the bar and waits until Yuri scrambles to his feet and _super duper gracefully,_ thank you very much, settles into one of the stools.

The gentle, methodical scrape of his brush over his scalp makes Yuri’s eyes flutter shut.

Otabek’s fingers in his hair should not be so fucking nice, but they are. Yuri sits ramrod straight and doesn't dare move as Otabek’s fingers rake against his scalp to split his hair into sections, sweeping feather-light over the back of his neck to grab the strays. When Lilia does this for him before competition, it’s just soothing, but when Otabek does it, the heat of it makes Yuri’s skin warm, his hands clench at his sides. ‘You better not fuck it up,’ he says, and nope, no, there is _not_ a waver in his voice.

‘I won't.’ Otabek’s fingers pause over Yuri’s fringe, his skin brushing Yuri’s forehead, and Yuri thinks he might combust on the spot. ‘I used to help the other skaters when there weren't enough staff members, and when we were very little, Amina used to like it when someone played with her hair. Usually it was my mother, but when she was busy, it was me.’

Yuri is quiet for a moment. ‘I was thinking about cutting it.’

‘Don't.’

Yuri opens his eyes again in shock at the assertive tone in Otabek’s voice. ‘Why not?’

Otabek falls silent as he weaves Yuri’s hair, tugging lightly at his scalp in little bursts of pleasure. ‘You can cut it if you want,’ he says finally, sounding slightly guilty as he takes the hair-tie from Yuri’s fingers and winds it around the end of the braid. ‘I like it like this, though.’ His fingers linger for a moment at the crown of Yuri’s head.

Yuri pulls back to look at him, his eyes narrowed, but Otabek’s walking away like that didn't mean a _fucking_ thing, his bare feet padding against the kitchen floor. Yuri stares after him. Otabek doesn’t notice, because he’s fucking blind, apparently; his focus is now on the fridge and its sparse contents.

Yuri touches his hair lightly where it lies tight against his scalp. It feels even and perfect under his fingers, twisting and weaving above his ear. Discreetly, he smothers his smile with his palm and dies a little bit, right there on the bar.

‘I thought we might go to the President’s Park,’ Otabek suggests, his back turned to Yuri. ‘And since you know all of my friends now, you might tell me about yours?’

‘You’ve met all of them,’ Yuri says once he gets his tongue unstuck from the roof of his mouth. ‘They’re not nearly as cool.’

Otabek shrugs and reaches for the milk. ‘I’d still like to know what you think of them.’ He looks back at Yuri.

‘Yeah,’ Yuri says. He can’t pull the smile off his face, so he just gives up. ‘Yeah, I guess that’s fine.’

God, this is pathetic.


	9. Burgundy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo, boy. Fluff time’s over. This is where I’m going to slap a trigger warning for a very frank discussion of past child abuse that resulted in a serious injury. If that’s not your cup of tea, please skip the section after ‘He’s just waiting for the penny to drop.’ The section that begins with ’He stands at the airport with his backpack…’ is safe to read again.

The benefit to having a friend who fluently speaks two of the same languages you do means that you can switch between them without a problem for the fun of it. Yuri’s heard enough English in the streets to know that most people in Almaty probably speak it too, but he’s not going to burst his own bubble about it. He finds himself doing it anyways, ranging from asking Otabek to pass the sugar to yelling at a kid who gets too close to him on her skateboard to pointing out a particularly freaky-looking statue in the park on their morning run. It’s not like he doesn't know that he’s doing it, since he has to think through the translation of some of his words before he says them in English. But it’s good practice, he supposes. There’s always a benefit to knowing how to swear in multiple languages. It doesn't really matter; laughter sounds the same no matter where you come from. Otabek’s always sounds like the sweetest symphony.

* * *

Kadyr’s phone number has inexplicably made its way into Yuri’s contacts. Yuri texts him a string of question marks, to which he only responds with a winky face. It’s both a relief and a reminder that Yuri needs to say something. Now. ( _Never_.)

* * *

Worry and guilt make the time in Almaty blur into nothing. Has it really been five days? All Yuri’s been using to keep track of time are how many times he looks up at that stupid crack in the ceiling, how many times he catches himself staring after Otabek for too long, how often he’s noticed that the colour index in the bathroom has moved or disappeared completely. The three times he looked up to find Otabek’s eyes on him, shrugged off with an eye roll or a thrown couch pillow. The wind against his skin as they zip down the streets, Almatinian fog keeping the sun out and blending the mornings into the evenings. Yuri leaves his feet in Otabek’s lap while they sit on the couch after dinners. Otabek sends him a Spotify playlist of all the base music he played in the club so Yuri can comb through it for his favourites. Before he goes to bed, he makes Otabek braid his hair along his temples so it won't tangle so much when he sleeps, and maybe just a little to feel Otabek’s fingers against his scalp.

Otabek’s flat actually starts to look like someone lives in it. To celebrate, Yuri steals the stuffed cat he gave Otabek and sets it next to the bear on the sofa for an Instagram photo. Otabek sees them and does his little half-snort before he sits next to the cat, earbuds in, and starts sorting through his music. Yuri grins and plops down on the other side of the stuffed toys.

Two days until he goes home, and if he ignores the guilt sitting like a stone at the base of his stomach, the whole thing seems like a dream. He’ll roll over at any moment and open his eyes in St. Petersburg, alone in his dorm room, Potya sleeping under the bed and his failures hanging over his neck like a guillotine waiting for him to try to sit up to drop. His thigh will still be purple, his pride in shattered pieces at his feet, his legacy as long-lived as a soap bubble.

 _@otabek-altin tagged you in a photo_.

Shaken out of his downward spiral, he opens up the app to a picture of himself holding his helmet under his arm, looking excitedly at something off-camera and pointing to it. He remembers it, too: A scrap metal statue of an alien screaming at the pedestrians, a part of an open-air art exhibition they’d passed on their wanderings. He looks happy.

'How do you keep getting these pictures?’ Yuri demands, dropping his phone into his lap. Otabek shrugs, straight-faced, and takes a picture of him. Yuri makes an indignant noise and lunges, scrabbling for the phone and laughing. They end up in a heap on the floor, the phone knocked out of Otabek’s hand and across the carpet. Yuri’s chin’s on Otabek’s chest, his hips between Otabek’s legs, his arm outstretched for a device neither of them can reach, when he realises how precarious this position is. Otabek closes his eyes, his chest heaving with his stupid laughter while Yuri has a mini heart attack as he scrambles to get off of Otabek before he embarrasses himself.

'It’s probably shit,’ Yuri says, crossing his legs and glaring at Otabek. ‘Delete it.’

'And if it isn’t?’ Otabek looks up at him. ‘I’ve never found a picture of you that looks bad. It’s why I keep doing it.’

Yuri stares at him. ‘You can’t say shit like that.’

Otabek blinks. ‘Why not? It’s true.’

Yuri buries his face in his hands to hide how red he’s gone. He fights for something to combat it, digging his claws into it with triumph and foreboding. It’s out of his mouth before he can stop himself. ‘Ugh. You know why? Have you seen those billboard ads for perfume with the woman in white, holding a lily?’

Otabek shrugs. ‘I don’t pay attention to those kinds of things.’

Yuri groans and digs out his phone, daring to type out a name he can’t voice without getting irrationally angry. Now’s not the time for that. He’s going to see his damn point to the end, no matter how much he wants to take the words back and shove them right back down his throat. When he finds the advertisement he’s been pointedly ignoring on _Dedulya’s_ grocery runs in Moscow, the ones that Georgi and Mila had the tact to avoid pointing out when they went to their gossip café sessions, he throws his phone at Otabek, who catches it out of the air and squints at the image on the screen.

'Pretty,’ Otabek comments politely.

Yuri scowls. ‘My _mama_.’

‘Oh.’ Otabek looks at her again. ‘And?’

Yuri rolls his eyes. ‘Duh. I’m photogenic because of her. It’s nothing special. Just genetics.’

Otabek sits up in a fluid roll. ‘Maybe. Or maybe it’s because of Lilia Alexandrovna’s work, or all of the training for your skating. Maybe it’s because you’re used to having eyes on you.’ He holds the phone out to Yuri.

'Does it matter, if the results are the same? I like taking pictures of you.’

Yuri opens his mouth. Shuts it. Looks away, because his face is really fucking red now, isn’t it? ‘Really?’

'Hm.’

Yuri takes that as a yes. ‘If you post an ugly picture of me, I’ll kill you.’

'Impossible.’ Otabek gets to his feet, grabs his phone, and holds out a hand to help Yuri up to his feet. ‘Can’t take a bad picture of you.’

Yuri wants to scream. Squeal like a little girl, maybe. Or explode. That sounds like a good option, too. The walls suddenly seem to be pressing in on him, pressing him to move closer, take his chances, live for a few precious moments before he invariably gets kicked out of Otabek’s life forever. It’s worth it, isn’t it? Say something, do something; secrets do no good all bottled up inside.

'Dina wants to go to lunch,’ Otabek says, suddenly all the way in the kitchen. ‘Yes? No?’

Kadyr’s words prey on his mind like acid, eating away at his restraint. He needs other people between them. Other tasks. Eating’ll do that. Talking. All those eyes. Something besides the silence that suggests so sweetly that he press Otabek and his stupid hair and his stupid, sappy words into the wall and kiss him until he forgets how to talk.

'Yeah, sure,’ Yuri says.

Two days. He can handle two days, right?

* * *

Kadyr is noticeably absent from the group when Yuri and Otabek push into the restaurant, but that doesn’t seem to have brought their energy levels down. The other four wave Yuri and Otabek over in a sea of too many limbs, laughing and pushing each other. Dinara pats the spot in the booth next to her and Yuri takes that as all the confirmation he needs to slide in.

'Emerged from the nest, have we?’ Denis jabs, slinging an arm around Otabek’s neck. ‘What have you been doing that could possibly have been better than wreaking havoc on the town, hm?’

Otabek shrugs. ‘Reading. Taking runs. Riding around with Yura. Aren’t you supposed to be in school? Even Kadyr’s gone to class.’

All four of them boo him. Nuralia flicks water at him from across the table.

'Nah,’ Denis says. ‘Kadyr can pretend to care about his grades all he wants, but I think that a final get-together with Yura’s the least we can do before he goes back north. Love makes a man rational, apparently,’ he says to Yuri, rolling his eyes.

'I don’t think that’s the saying, Denya,’ Amir says dryly. Denis hits him.

Dinara puts up a hand. ‘No no no. Kadyr’s an idiot for going to class. Please. It’s not every day we get to hear stupid stories about your world. You know how he is.’ She kicks at Otabek.

The waiter comes to take their orders. Yuri holds out his menu towards Otabek, who points to something after a moment’s hesitation. He orders. When the waiter leaves, Dinara sets her elbows on the table and smiles expectantly at Yuri. ‘So. Spill.’

'Has he told you how we met?’ Yuri starts immediately. ‘The second time, I mean, because I don’t remember the first time.’

'You kidding? It was all over the internet.’ Denis blocks out the words in the air. ‘“Russian Fairy Kidnapped by Hero of Kazakhstan.” Of course he didn’t actually tell us, he just did the Bek shrug.’ He jostles Otabek, who gives them his trademark blank face and says nothing. 

'Right, so I have the most batshit insane fans. Like, these girls fly out from who knows where and ambush me at hotels all the time, but in Barcelona they chased me through the streets for, I don’t know, selfies and shit? Autographs?’ Yuri skips a beat. ‘Soulmark comparisons? Whatever. Anyways I’m cornered on a side street and he comes riding in on his bike, no introductions, no “Hi, how are you, I’m Otabek Altin.” No, he just throws me a helmet and says “Get on,” and I get the fuck on because what else am I gonna do? So no, I wasn’t kidnapped. Hero did his job.’

Yuri sits back while Denis jostles Otabek again and the other three ‘Ooooh’ in a cacophony of obnoxious, glorious sounds that makes the couple in the next booth over shoot them dirty looks. Yuri glares. The woman makes an offended noise and scoots further into her booth.

Something about being around them makes Yuri more daring, jumping right past loud and obnoxious to reckless and filterless.

'Alright, that was my story. I wanna hear about the motorcycle thing.’

Amir tilts his head at Yuri and, dead serious, asks, ‘Which one?’

Yuri looks around at all of them, one at a time, before he smirks.

'The pink one, obviously.’

Dinara snickers. ‘Oh my god, Beks, you told him about _that_ motorcycle thing?’

Otabek shrugs. ‘I don’t know. It finally got funny when I had someone to share it with who didn’t do it.’

A true hero,’ Amir pipes up again. ‘But his story was probably shit.’

To Yuri’s mild surprise, Amir leans forward, abandoning all poise with a devious smile and a glint in his eyes that fully cements his position in their little group. Yuri had wondered.

'Let me tell you exactly what happened and what we did to our knight’s poor steed…’

* * *

Everything seems so perfect. There are puzzle pieces fitting together, slotting into place and filling in gaps that Yuri didn’t even realise he had. He forgot what it was like to have friends his age, and not in years has he been so easily accepted like a cherished member of an admittedly unorthodox family. Because that’s what Otabek has in his friends ( _Their_ friends, apparently, and wow, isn’t that nice?) here in Almaty. And here in Almaty, everything is calmer. Easier. He has not seen a single billboard with someone he knows staring down at him. He only gets bothered by people who recognise Otabek, and when it happens, he is always the point of secondary attention. The mountain air is clearer than the sea breeze in St. Petersburg, the smell of industry in Moscow. He can breathe here. His laughter comes without effort. 

He’s just waiting for the penny to drop.

* * *

It was bound to happen at some point. Secrets build like earthquakes, rage trying to escape the surface to scream at the sky. And no fucking way is he going to tell Otabek what happened. He’s not ready for that, are you kidding? He needs maybe a couple thousand miles and a computer screen between them before he does. But the magma burning under his skin begs for release, pressing at him from everywhere as it tries to find a crack from which to escape. Something has to give.

There’s no real catalyst for it. They’ve got some cheesy movie that Otabek found while flipping through the channels playing so low Yuri can’t really hear it. Yuri’s sprawled over the couch, claiming his half of it and twisting the ends of his fringe into messy braids while Otabek flips through another thick book, the pages rustling every minute or so. The quiet is comfortable. There’s no reason for him to go and disturb it, and yet, the words come tearing out of his throat like they’ve been on a timer, waiting to blow apart.

'You know my name?’

Otabek doesn’t look up. ‘Yes.’

'What is it? The whole thing.’

Otabek’s brow furrows just a little, but he keeps his eyes on the page. ‘Mm. Yuri Nikolaevich Plisetsky.’ The _Why?_ is heavily implied.

Yuri takes a deep breath. ‘My father’s name isn’t Nikolai.’

Otabek’s hand stills on the page.

'It’s my _Dedulya’s_.’ He switches to full Russian. There’s no way he can filter any of this through the English translation in his head, not when he’s started and he can’t stop. ‘My mother helped me change my patronymic after I screamed and cried about it for months. She kept telling me that it wasn’t a big deal, I just had to pretend it was like an American middle name, that it meant nothing. Can you fucking believe it? She tried to tell me to suck it up and deal with it, but I guess it was worth it to get me to shut up. I was seven when we changed it. She was still sore about what happened with my father.’ He takes a shaky breath.

Otabek closes his book. ‘Yuri, you don’t have to–’

'Fuck you, yes I do, just–’ Yuri sucks in another breath. ‘Just shut up for a minute and let me get it out, okay?’ Otabek stays quiet, so he keeps going. ‘I don’t remember a lot, okay? Just what Grandpa and Grandma told me and what the social workers said and the stuff I’ve seen from looking up the court case. You see, I wasn’t meant to happen. Mama and my father were those really gross kind of soulmates, the ones who are completely invested in each other and don’t really care about what happens around them. They just wanted to have a lot of fun, but then Mama got pregnant and I was my father’s big annoyance. He drank a lot. Got angry at everything and everyone.’ Yuri tugs at his fringe and glares at his lap. ‘I’m serious, I don’t remember this shit, so don’t feel fucking sorry for me, but Grandpa says he’d come and visit and Mama and I’d have all these bruises.’

Otabek inhales audibly.

'What did I say?’ Yuri snaps. Otabek just shakes his head a little. ‘Whatever, shut up. So one day he gets really, really mad about something. Money, work, football, who the hell knows. Grandpa says I was obsessed with watching my soulmark and asking about all the pretty colours, so maybe it was just my father’s annoying son getting on his last nerve, because he snapped.’ Yuri reaches down and pulls off his armband. ‘He held me down and went at my fucking arm with a lighter and a pocket-knife. And the police did their job for once, he’s locked up forever for it, but god.’ Yuri can’t breathe properly. ‘I remember this one bit, where this nurse in her pink scrubs took Mama’s hand and told her that there wasn’t a fucking thing they could do about the scarring because the burns were that bad and that I’d probably never be able to see my mark again. And fuck, she was right.’ Yuri’s crying now, dammit, but this is his own fault for talking about it at all. He holds out his arm and runs his finger over the uneven surface, feeling really gross for crying and not giving a shit about it. ‘Look, you can’t even see the fucking edge colours. Bastard knew what he was doing. Anything to get the brat to shut up, right?’

'Yura,’ Otabek says, his voice cracking, and it’s too much. Yuri throws himself across the sofa, getting all sorts of disgusting face fluids all over Otabek’s shirt again. He twists his fingers into the cotton and screams into Otabek’s chest as his friend—friend! Dammit, why is that such a fucking problem?—wraps his arms around Yuri like he’s afraid that if he doesn’t hold him tight enough, he’ll crumble. And you know what, if that’s what Otabek’s thinking, he’s probably right. Yuri’s fucking grateful.

Yuri hasn’t had a real breakdown like this since Viktor saw the mark and Yuri, who was twelve and saw a damn god looking down at him with an open ear, let the whole story spill like tea from a shattered mug. Losing Worlds is nothing compared to this, because Yuri never wants to think about how really fucking awful the whole thing is and how much it utterly sucks that he’s had this precious gift ripped away from him in a moment but he is thinking about it. And maybe it’s really ten times worse than Worlds because he can feel Otabek’s fingers digging into his back and hot, wet drops of water against his scalp where Otabek’s tucked Yuri’s head under his chin.

'Don’t cry, asshole,’ Yuri begs, muffled, into Otabek’s chest. ‘That’s my job. I’m the only one who has the right to cry about this, do you understand? Beka, do you get why you’re so fucking lucky?’

'Yes,’ Otabek says, his voice strangled. ‘Yes, yes, I’ve never forgotten, I know.’

God, Yuri wishes he could have Otabek like this forever, holding him together with a soldier’s stalwart ferocity. He’s so relieved. It feels like a massive weight’s been lifted from his shoulders. He could leap off the roof and fly. Or maybe this feeling is actually the feeling of falling, because he simultaneously wants to die and kiss Otabek and scream into the clear night for everyone to hear it: _I’m Yuri Plisetsky, and I’m a fucking soulmate cripple, but it’s fine! The boy I love knows it!_

Freedom, as it turns out, is both the best and the worst feeling in the world.

'I’m sorry,’ Otabek whispers. ‘I’m sorry. I suspected, but I didn’t know it was…’ He trails off. What? So bad? Horrifying? Poetic? But Yuri can’t say anything else without pulling back and hell if he’s going to do that, not when he’s right where he wants to be.

Even if the other secret’s clinging to the tip of his tongue. Even if there’s someone else carrying Otabek’s mark. Even if what he really wants to be doing is sitting on this couch with no tears and Otabek’s arm around his shoulders and the future spreading wide open before them.

Almaty is a place of truth, apparently, and he can’t say he regrets it in the least.

* * *

He stands at the airport with his backpack, his leopard-print bag, and five Kazakhstani teenagers hanging off of each other as they wave goodbye, all sporting those goddamned cat ears and waving a Russian flag from who knows where. It’s really fucking stupid because he’s still in line at the check-in, but he appreciates it more than he would ever attempt to put into words.

It’s when he’s about to go through security that it hits him that it’s over. Done. He’ll be lucky if he ever sees his new friends again. And as he lets go of his suitcase for just a moment to run and tackle a surprised Otabek in a _not-emotional-at-all_ goodbye hug, he realises he’s not going to see Otabek face-to-face until the next Grand Prix series, and wow, doesn’t that fucking suck?

He wants to say he’s not ready to go, but he’d be lying. Of course he doesn’t want to go home after this, but… he does. Medeu has left him with a renewed desire to get his feet back on the ice. He wants to find himself again, to build himself back up from the base of the ladder, to crush anyone who tries to stand in between him and a gold-lined season.

Otabek pries him off slowly, his fingers curled tightly around Yuri’s biceps as he hold him back. Yuri can’t tear his eyes away from Otabek’s. ‘Have a good flight,’ Otabek says after a weighty pause. ‘Let me know when you land.’

'Of course,’ Yuri says immediately. ‘I’ll Skype you when I get home. Promise.’

Otabek looks like he’s going to say something else. Yuri wants to draw it out of him with a string. _What? What? Spit it out. We’re friends, aren’t we?_

But Otabek just shakes his head a little and lets go of him. ‘Go, before you miss it.’ His voice drops into a low murmur so quiet that Yuri can barely hear it. _‘Qoş bol,_ Yura. _Sen meniñ Almatığa ömir äkeldi, men öte onıñ sezimin jiberip boladı.’_

Yuri huffs. ‘Would it kill you to say it in Russian?’

Otabek’s lips twitch up in a half-smile.

‘Yes. Go.’

Yuri goes.

It hurts like shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Otabek: Goodbye, Yura. You brought life to my Almaty, and I will sorely miss the feeling of it.  
> I speak no Kazakh and won’t pretend to. That’s completely Google-translated. Please correct me if I’m wrong.


	10. Copper Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: This is where that mature rating finally kicks in. You have been warned, because things start to get steamy ;)

PART THREE: AFTER

* * *

* * *

Russia clears Yuri’s head before the wheels touch down on the tarmac. There is so much to be done. He’ll have to apologise to Lilia Alexandrovna for being so rude after Worlds and move back into his dorm room and endure Katsudon and Viktor’s sappy rivalry on the rink but it will be fine. There’s a clear goal in his head now, all the depressive fog sapped away from him by the eerie swathes of it in Almaty. He has to find music for his programs, decide who will choreograph, how many quads he can produce, if he should attempt to work quad flips and loops into his competitive programs instead of practicing them in the dark like a criminal.

At his core, he is a skater. It was easy to forget it for a week, but his indulgence is over. Away from Otabek, he should be able to think clearly.

It doesn't stop him from missing Otabek like hell, but it was like that before. And he was right; it’s easier to shove his guilt far, far down to almost nothing when he doesn't have to wake up in Otabek’s flat.

 _Dedulya_ seems pleased and proud when Yuri bursts in the door and announces that he’s going back to St. Petersburg. Good. He understands who Yuri is. It just took a little bit of a reminder for Yuri to remember, too.

* * *

 It’s not like he hasn’t had this fucking dream before, because he has. Multiple times.

There’s only been one rink that’s ever made an impression on him with the lights off and the stands vacated. The ice is smooth, the Japanese moonlight streaming in through the tall windows, and the only sound is Yuri’s breath, Yuri’s skates scraping with each turn.

Then he’s no longer the only person on the ice, and Yuri’s tracks are not the only ones on the ice. There’s a hand on the small of his back and suddenly Yuri’s up against the boards, his hands curled tightly around the railing as hot breath ghosts over his ear. Steady fingers rake up into his hair and Yuri whimpers, his breath threatening to cloud as he pants at the touch of another hand just under the hem of his t-shirt, raising goosebumps as it drags warmth over his skin and then takes it away.

Then there are hot lips on the back of his neck and a strong arm around his chest and usually Yuri wakes up right about now, uncomfortably hard over the nameless, faceless, silent other, and he takes care of it. What? He’s a teenager, and he’s seen some nasty shit; his private little fantasies are nothing in comparison to some of the stuff on the internet. But it doesn’t end there this time, no.

‘Yura,’ Otabek purrs in his ear, low and gravelly, and Yuri’s got just enough room to spin around so he does, and Otabek’s warm-toned skin is flushed red at the tops of his cheeks, his hair mussed like someone purposely loosened all of the gel. Yuri can’t help the full-body shudder when Otabek presses closer, his hands running up Yuri’s sides, rucking up his shirt so the cold metal of the railing bites into his skin. Otabek ducks his head and mouths at the sensitive skin under Yuri’s jaw, forcing Yuri’s chin up with the grip he has in Yuri’s hair and Yuri moans, breathy and hot as he brings his hand up to twine in Otabek’s hair and tug in retaliation, catching the sight of a familiar red-and-magenta splash of colour across the inside of his own forearm–

Yuri wakes up writhing in the sheets tangled around his legs. He kicks Potya off the bed and thrusts his hand beneath his pyjamas, gasping into his pillows in a litany of swear words that increases in pitch and decreases in coherency until he sinks his teeth into the feathers and comes with a muffled cry. Oh, god, he feels gross. Catching his breath, he glances at the clock—shit, four in the morning, what the hell—and only feels a little bit guilty about it, because in his own dorm room he’s shameless and that’s what Otabek fucking gets for being hot, a DJ, a hot DJ, and 5,000 kilometres away.

* * *

 Yuri wonders if people can tell. Lilia asks him twice to focus, which is two times too many by any and all indications, especially because all he has to do today is sit and watch her dance out his choreography. When she demands that he get up and replicate her movements, he finds, to his mild horror, that he doesn’t remember it. When he does, it feels odd, like his limbs are in the wrong places and his balance is off. She makes him do repetitive _grands jetés_ back and forth across the studio in punishment and he can’t even force himself to be mad about it beyond surface indignation.

It’s doubly shameful because the music for his short program tells a compelling story. In it Yuri hears his journey from innocent and hopeful to bitter and angry to triumphant and powerful to… almost foreboding. If any kind of music could describe his career up to now, he thinks it’s this one. Lilia tells him it’s not an original piece and he boggles at her because _how,_ then, is it so accurate?

‘It is called _“Descente du Dragon_ , _”_ Lilia says primly. ‘Do not ever say I do not understand you at your core.’

He wonders, after hearing it again and ingraining her choreography into his head, if she means for it to seem like a lament. He’s sixteen goddamn years old, not Katsudon’s twenty-four. Does Lilia hope to burn away his skating’s fey personality if she can make him leave his past behind? He hates it, certainly, more than he can say, but as much as he wishes it weren’t, it’s a part of him and his career.

 _Russian Fairy Kidnapped by the Hero of Kazakhstan._ Is that something he wants to erase from his history? Hell no.

Lilia clears her throat just as he’s about to leave for the day, his dance bag thrown over his shoulder and his mind on the Skype call this afternoon.

‘Yurotchka,’ she says. ‘I hope you’ve realised now that your disappointment at the World Championships was because of this?’ She gestures to him as a whole.

‘Because of what?’ he snaps.

‘Your height,’ she says, smacking the back of his thighs with a magazine as she brushes past him. ‘You’re growing quickly. I think these next few months will be troublesome for you, but you knew this was coming. You must adapt to yourself every day and learn to accept change. Do not grow lazy.’

Yuri turns to look at himself in the mirror and can’t see a change. ‘What are you talking about?’

The expression on her face is contemplative when he turns back. ‘You do not need my constant attention this season, I think,’ she says, tapping her lips. ‘But should you find yourself struggling through your growth spurt, you will come live with me again. We will work the awkwardness out of you.’

She frowns at him until he realises what she’s waiting for and nods. ‘Yes, Lilia Alexandrovna. Thank you.’

‘We’ll work the manners back into you, too,’ she scolds, and leaves him alone in the studio.

After the silence has settled, he slowly makes his way to the mirror and squints at his reflection. Maybe she’s right. Was he looking up at Otabek or meeting his gaze at eye-level? He doesn’t look that different if he’s just standing here and looking at himself.

But… that makes a lot of sense, actually. Being unable to find his feet in almost every single jump where he’d almost never had problems? The unsurety, the mood swings, the sudden uptick in thoughts about how much he wants to climb his best friend like a tree?

It’s the fucking hormones, isn’t it.

* * *

 ‘I’m having a crisis,’ he tells Otabek, lying across his mattress and feeling miserable.

‘I can tell,’ Otabek says from Yuri’s phone screen, eyeing his sprawl across the bed. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘No!’ Yuri wails. And then, because he can’t help himself, in his most venomous voice, he says, with great feeling, ‘…Puberty.’

He watches Otabek try and fail to hold back the laugh at his expense.

‘Yes, puberty’s awful,’ Otabek agrees. ‘Is this a new revelation? Because if so, you must have been a terrifying toddler with a voice that deep.’

‘Shut up,’ Yuri says, throwing his arm over his eyes. ‘Lilia Alexandrovna thinks I fucked up Worlds because of a growth spurt. And she’s right, I went and made Mila measure me and I’m 169 which is a full six centimetres taller than I was in December and how did I not fucking notice?’

‘Good question. I was going to say something when I met you at the airport, but 169, really? That’s a centimetre taller than me.’

Yuri blinks at him and grins. ‘Seriously? Haha, suck it, Beka.’

Otabek hums. ‘I had the same problem when I was sixteen. I went from about 152 to 160 in the course of maybe three months? My season was awful, but I was still in juniors, so it’s easy to forget about it.’

Yuri makes a distressed noise. ‘I can’t have a shitty season. This is the only season I’ll ever get to compete against Viktor and I can’t lose it to fucking puberty!’

‘Then don’t,’ Otabek says calmly. ‘You have good coaches and the skill to win. And now you have your motivation.’ He raises a brow. ‘Though if you blame your losses to me on puberty, I’ll be offended.’

‘It’ll be a double victory if I crush you too, then,’ Yuri retorts. He pats Potya’s head from where he’s decided to settle on his chest, which rises and falls with his purrs. ‘Seriously, what am I going to do?’

‘Work hard,’ Otabek says. ‘Know that the growth spurts will come and go. Hope that this is the big one and it doesn’t hit you during the Final. You’ll most likely be fine by Worlds.’

‘That doesn’t fucking help me,’ Yuri whines. Otabek doesn’t say anything else, but Yuri gets the _I’m trying_ from the set of his jaw through the screen. Yuri sighs. ‘Thanks, I guess.’

‘How are you feeling?’ Otabek asks abruptly.

Yuri groans. ‘I don’t fucking know. Frustrated? It all makes sense now and I can’t believe I let myself think that, I don’t know, I’d just become incompetent at skating? Because that was terrifying and horrible and it still is but it’s not entirely me. I mean it is, but—’ He makes another frustrated noise. ‘You know what I mean. Why so touchy-feely all of the sudden?’

‘I thought I’d ask how my friend was feeling after he loudly proclaimed that he’s having a crisis,’ Otabek says in deadpan.

‘Shut up,’ Yuri says again. ‘I’m fine. I guess.’

‘Right.’

‘I am!’

* * *

The thing about sharing a rink with Katsudon again that Yuri was too angry to register before Worlds is that he finally has a respected rival on the rink who takes his skating seriously. Georgi’s trying, and Yuri sees that, but it’s easier to make fun of him to motivate him than it is to show off. With Katsudon, he can show off, because Katsudon will take one look at him and get that determined expression on his face and he’ll stop flubbing his jumps for the day. That’s the kind of competition Yuri wants.

Viktor’s there too, but he’s still tiptoeing around Yuri and fawning over Katsudon and Yuri can’t take him seriously, especially when he watches Viktor struggle with the short program he’d skated so flawlessly when he came back. The way Yuri regards Katsudon is so much easier to manage and understand, so he turns his attentions to him instead during breaks.

Katsudon’s short program is another piece choreographed by Viktor. Of course. Yuri wasn’t expecting anything less. What is surprising is the fact that it’s not about love or Viktor or any of that mushy crap. Yuri thinks he sees a story about climbing a mountain and finding the top, which is both familiar and not at all. Katsudon only has the choreography and the spins, but his flow and step sequence are, as Yuri would never admit out loud, enviable. Katsudon wears emotions on his sleeves out on the ice that hides beneath his nervous laughter and his cold exterior, and there Yuri sees their shared dejection, depression, and failure, topped off by the constant determination that Katsudon has displayed throughout his entire career.

It’s admirable.

But Yuri has a record to defend, and what if isn’t good enough?

What if, he thinks with a bitter taste in his mouth, he needs Viktor’s choreography to even have a chance of winning?

* * *

 Katsudon catches him at the bridge after practice, staring off at the water and chatting with Otabek. He doesn’t like the gleam in Katsudon’s eyes as he settles his elbows on the railing and smiles at Yuri.

‘…and now her room is purple,’ Otabek finishes.

Yuri ignores Katsudon and laughs. ‘You’re a bad influence.’

‘Me?’ Otabek asks, mock-offended. ‘I do nothing short of being the perfect role model for Amina.’

‘Yeah fucking right.’ Yuri gives Katsudon a pointed look and starts speaking more quickly to keep the pig from understanding more than a few words at a time. Katsudon’s Russian is getting better, but he’s still hopeless at translating what he hears if it’s at a normal, conversational pace, much less at the speed at which Yuri talks in general. ‘Don't stop there! Tell me what else she did.’

Otabek chuckles. ‘I caught her in my jacket, making faces at the mirror. With no shame, she turns around and asks if I’ll cover for her so she can skip piano lessons and hang out with my “cool friends” instead.’ Yuri can hear the quotation marks. ‘She has a crush on Kadyr.’

‘Who doesn't have a crush on Kadyr?’ Yuri says saltily, and Otabek laughs again.

‘I’ll tell him you said that,’ Otabek says dryly.

‘Don't you dare!’ Yuri sputters with mock indignation, but he’s smiling. He gets jokes, okay?

‘I don't have the heart to tell her Kadyr’s found his mate,’ Otabek says. Then he acquiesces, ‘And it’s just a little funny. Her eyes go all wide and she starts vibrating in her boots.’

Yuri can see Amina bouncing on her toes, gaping at Kadyr and hitting Otabek with the flat of her little hand, and he snorts into a series of giggles. It’s completely gross and undignified, but so what, he does what he wants.

‘I demand video evidence,’ Yuri says when he can breathe again. ‘Take her with you next time.’

‘Only for you, Yura,’ Otabek says warmly. ‘But if she kills me, it's your fault.’

‘I’m going to be the death of you no matter what,’ Yuri says loftily. ‘Better accept it now.’

‘I wouldn't expect anything else.’

Yuri grins. ‘Call me later, asshole.’

When he hangs up, Katsudon’s giving him a new look that wipes the smile off his face and makes him want to hiss, throw his skates, and bolt. Katsudon always looks like he knows what’s going on in Yuri’s head, even though that’s impossible. Defensively, Yuri shoves his phone into his pocket.

‘What?’ he demands.

‘Nothing,’ Katsudon says, turning to the water. ‘It’s just that I can't remember the last time I heard you laugh.’

Yuri opens his mouth to say something crass and insulting, but it comes out as more of a strangled sound as he digests the thought.

He can think of the last few times. Easy. It’s just that they all happened after the Final, away from the rink. After twilight, out on cobblestone streets in Barcelona, during late night Skype calls. Up in the misty mountains of the Medeu Valley. Crammed into a booth with a handful of Kazakhstani teenagers.

And there’s one constant linking them all.

‘Maybe you were just too absorbed in your fairytale romance to notice, Katsudon,’ he says. There’s little bite to it.

‘Maybe,’ Katsudon says cheerfully. He gives Yuri a smile that makes his eyes crinkle from how wide it is. It’s one he’d absolutely learned from Viktor. Yuri doesn’t like it.

Yuri scoffs and shoves his phone into his pocket. ‘Keep your nose out of it. Why are you here?’

Katsudon shrugs. ‘No reason. I just thought you might want to come over for dinner, but if you’d rather not…’

Yuri narrows his eyes at him. ‘What kind of dinner?’

Katsudon’s got him, anyways, and he knows it. ‘Pork belly _okonomiyaki,’_ he says, and wow, Yuri’s mouth is already watering as he thinks of the oil hissing against the fat on the flat iron in Viktor’s kitchen. ‘Phichit sent me a recipe for coconut sticky rice last week too, and I thought I’d try making it. We haven’t tasted it yet, but it’s in the fridge so if you want—’

‘Alright, yes, fine, I’m coming,’ Yuri says, caving. ‘Go away.’

‘Do you need the address?’

‘I know where his flat is,’ Yuri says irritably, and okay, yeah, maybe that’s giving away a little bit of what his dynamic with Viktor used to be like before Katsudon drunkenly threw himself in the way.

‘Seven o’clock?’ Katsudon suggests. Yuri waves a hand in acknowledgement.

* * *

 Yuri is reluctantly, pleasantly full. Lilia’s going to kill him in the morning, because she always knows when Yuri cheats on his diet. _Somehow._ And this wasn’t just cheating, it was all-out destruction of his meal plan. He doesn’t want to know how many calories he consumed, because it’s probably more than he should have eaten in a week.

Makkachin’s fur is soft and curly under his hands as he pets the poodle and spies on Viktor and Katsudon washing the dishes in the kitchen. They’re exchanging what sounds like playful barbs in Japanese, though Katsudon keeps repeating what Viktor says with slightly different pronunciations, correcting him to shared giggles. Yuri doesn’t even think they’re doing it to exclude him purposely. It’s like they’re in their own little bubble by the sink, scrubbing dishes and splashing each other and acting like children even though they’re both grown men.

‘Do dogs have soulmates?’ he asks Makkachin in a low murmur, burying his face in the poodle’s fur. ‘Of course you do. Your soulmate’s Vitya, isn’t it?’

It’s… weird, saying that name again. Yuri hasn’t called him that since before he met Katsudon at the banquet. But Yuri gets the feeling that Makkachin sees and knows everything. The dog’s probably the smartest one of all of them. He probably sees right through Yuri and knows that watching Viktor smile and laugh and no longer walk around like he’s made of brittle glass has made Yuri’s grudges melt like ice cream left out for too long in the sun.

‘They’re kinda cute, huh?’ Yuri asks, hugging Makkachin closer. Makkachin patiently lets him do it, which he appreciates. ‘Is it bad that I want that, too? Is that selfish and horrible of me?’

Makkachin pants.

‘Because I don’t know,’ Yuri says. ‘I honestly don’t know, but you probably do, don’t you? You’ve seen a lot of shit. You’ve watched him. Always.’

They look up at the loud splash and Katsudon’s piggish squeal. There’s dish soap in his hair and now he’s chasing Viktor around the little kitchen and they’re laughing, laughing, laughing.

‘This is stupid,’ Yuri mutters. ‘I’m asking a dog for advice. What are you gonna tell me, huh? That I have plenty of time to sort it out? That it’s more important to focus on my career and worry about it later? That I’ve got bigger problems with my soulmate than just wishing for mine? Because you’d be right, and I still won’t listen.’

Makkachin licks his face and he recoils, wiping the dog slobber off his cheek. This is why cats are a thousand times better, gross. He tells Makkachin this.

‘I’m a teenager,’ Yuri grumbles. ‘I’m allowed to be irrational.’ He raises his voice. ‘You’re gonna slip and die and I’m going to laugh my ass off, idiots.’

Katsudon throws a towel at him and it hits him in the face and Viktor laughs, laughs, laughs. Yuri peels it off and throws it at Viktor and misses completely and this is okay, suddenly.

It’s fine that he’s sitting here in their flat, petting their dog and putting up with their bullshit while they’re being mushy and cute because he doesn’t care, anymore. If Viktor had stayed behind and coached him, who knows if he’d have been motivated enough to rise to the top during the Grand Prix? Spite and vengeance do a lot more than just getting what he wants. And if he hadn’t been so determined to win, Lilia Alexandrovna wouldn’t have helped him. He wouldn’t have won gold at all. JJ would probably be gloating about all of his wins instead, and wow, wouldn’t that have sucked?

Looking at Katsudon and Viktor still stings like a scraped knee, but it’s duller, now. And maybe they cared about him, maybe they didn’t. Maybe Viktor was thinking of him or maybe they were completely absorbed in their relationship and Katsudon’s success. It doesn’t change the fact that they asked him here and all of them had a civil, delicious dinner and Yuri didn’t start yelling, not even when Viktor not-so-subtly asked him about what happened while he was in Almaty.

(Yuri had nearly vaulted over the table to show off all of his pictures, including the selfie he’d taken during that final lunch with all of his new friends making cool poses. He bragged about Medeu and the club and the _shashliks_ and his best friend being a fucking DJ and Katsudon just _smiled_ at him like he knew.)

Bitterness never fades in a day, but it has in a year. Yuri watches Viktor and Katsudon return to their dishes and their impromptu Japanese lesson and finds that, where his fury at them would once send his phone to the bin after he’d smashed it to bits, there is nothing.

For once, Yuri doesn’t mind being forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuri's SP theme name is completely made up because I assume the origin of [this piece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_rzI7Y_NUs) doesn't exist in the YOI universe and it needs something more creative for a title. But that's his SP music because I am a nerd and I thought, gee, these stories sound quite similar. Hope we don't end up with a supervillain on our hands, hmm?
> 
> A note on Viktor's diminutive: I felt comfortable having Yuri having referred to Viktor in the past as 'Vitya' despite their age difference because they were close. Almost brotherish. Wouldn't it be sweet if they went back to that? (Oh, yeah. I'm the author. That's up to me. Whoops.)


	11. Azure

Things with Viktor are… better. Yuri’s not sure if it’s Katsudon or time or the fact that he’s thinking about other people now, but it’s no longer intolerable to be around him on the ice. Viktor cheers him on when he finally lands that pesky quad flip he can do in the dark but apparently can’t when trying to apply it to a competitive program and Yuri doesn’t immediately want to hurl his skates at Viktor’s head. He begrudgingly offers a slow clap when Viktor manages to get through his own short program again without falling. Yuri throws a jar of Tiger Balm that Otabek gave him at Viktor’s head when he spots Viktor rubbing his shoulder and wincing in the locker room. Viktor shows him how to tie his hair up in a ballet bun when Yuri reluctantly asks him to get it the hell out of his face (because after Otabek, no way in hell is he gonna cut it).

They’re not friends. It’s hard to be friends with someone twelve years older than you, especially when you used to idolise them and then they dropped you like a sack of old laundry, good excuses or not, remorse or no. But they’re not… enemies, either. Not _just_ rivals or rinkmates. They have Japan and that hug at the end of the Grand Prix last year and the dinners Yuri invariably finds himself attending and oh. _Oh, you devious son of a bitch, Katsudon—_

‘Yurio,’ Viktor greets.

‘That’s not my name,’ Yuri says automatically.

Viktor visibly checks himself, which is more than he’s ever done as far as Yuri’s concerned. ‘Yura…?’ he tries, and at Yuri’s nod, he goes on. ‘How’s your free program going?’

Yuri scowls at him. ‘Since when did you care?’

Viktor recoils a little. Yuri tries to bring himself to feel bad. ‘It’s not,’ Yuri grumbles at the look on Viktor’s face. ‘I’ve been focusing on my short program. I haven’t discussed it with Lilia Alexandrovna yet…’

Viktor shakes his head. ‘It’ll be boring if you have Lilia Alexandrovna do it again. Where’s the surprise in that? She targets your talents as a dancer, and you already have a program that’ll do that.’

Yuri scowls. ‘Where else do you suggest I find a program then, huh?’

‘You could talk to Yakov,’ Viktor says, tapping his chin. ‘Though I think he believes you are beyond his choreography. He’ll want to focus his energy on Zhora.’

Yuri glances at Georgi across the rink, who… looks kind of emotional. Incompatible again? He and Viktor wince at the same time as Georgi dips into a wailing, dramatic lunge, tears streaming down his cheeks. Yakov starts yelling.

‘Do you have a better suggestion?’ Yuri asks as he rips his horrified, fascinated gaze away.

Viktor hums. ‘I could do it,’ he says.

And that’s an idea, especially after Agape’s success from last season. Yuri actually considers it for long enough that Viktor apparently sees that as a confirmation.

‘So many themes you could choose, Yura!’ he starts, his eyes sparkling. ‘Recovery, growth, strength, love—’

‘Stop,’ Yuri says, probably a bit sharper than he intended. Viktor goes quiet. ‘First, love, what?’ His voice wavers a little bit when he says it and wow, could he be any more obvious? Before Viktor can get a word in, Yuri keeps going. ‘Idiot, I already did that. Second, no.’

‘No?’

‘Viktor, how’s Katsudon’s free program going?’

‘Great!’ Viktor enthuses. ‘Of course you’ve seen it. It’s difficult, yes, but emotional, captivating…I think it’s one of my best pieces yet.’

‘Great,’ Yuri echoes blandly, because honestly, he doesn't care. ‘And how’s _your_ free program?’

The silence is telling, mostly because Viktor never actually shuts up for more than fifteen seconds when he’s excited. Yuri leans on the boards and sighs.

‘Look. I get that you’re trying to apologise but it’s a shitty apology.’

( _I appreciate it,_ he means.)

‘This coach/competitor thing is a suicide mission for your career and you’re fucking stupid for even considering it. But you coaching Katsudon and choreographing for the both of you is better than you choreographing for yourself, Katsudon, _and_ me. Do you think I want Yakov yelling at me more because I’m taking up your time? Hah?’ He blows his fringe out of his face. ‘You’re less than worth it as a competitor if you're that distracted. No. If I'm going to win against you, I want it to be a fair fight. Otherwise you’re pointless.’

Viktor’s not doing that terrifyingly blank face that he gave Yuri after Yuri bashed his stupid good luck charm engagement rings, which means he gets it. Good. He just looks thoughtful.

‘Okay,’ Viktor says. He glances out at Georgi attempting to pull himself together and Yuri follows his gaze. Jesus, Georgi’s a grown-ass man. All the weeping is getting obnoxious.

‘Get over yourself, loser,’ Yuri yells. That seems to snap him out of it a little. Georgi grits his teeth, wipes his face on his sleeve, and throws himself into his jumps with a little less malaise.

Yuri pretends to watch one of Georgi’s better attempts at his step sequence so he doesn’t have to look directly at Viktor. He lowers his voice. ‘…I’m not saying no forever. When your tired ass is done with competition, ask me again.’

( _I appreciate the offer,_ he means. _It means a lot more than you think it does._ )

Viktor beams. He gets it. He always gets it, Yuri thinks with a twist of his mouth, as long as it has nothing to do with love.  

* * *

Yuri tries to make it in his dorm. Hell, if any guy in a boarding school can deal with these stupid height changes without making a fool out of themselves, then why shouldn’t he? But one morning he nearly trips down the stairs to the dining hall for no good reason except that suddenly his feet are too far away from his head. And then his meal plan is leaving him starving instead of comfortable, and his favourite black-blade skates are pinching his toes and gifting him with twice as many blisters as he’s ever had, and his precious, artfully ripped black jeans are too tight around his ass and too short at the ankle and he’s on the verge of having a meltdown, really.

‘What do I do?’ he wails at Otabek, holding his Japanese tiger shirt in his arms like the cooling body of his only child, because he _fucking ripped it_ trying to get it to sit right across his shoulders this morning and yeah, maybe sometimes he has anger issues. Otabek takes one look at him and the torn fabric and immediately logs off of Skype.

‘You fucking asshole!’ Yuri screeches at him when he picks up his phone on the fifth call. ‘The world is ending and you just _abandon_ me in my time of need? You’re the worst friend, god, Beka—’

Otabek stays silent as Yuri rants and rants until he gives up and hurls the mangled fabric across the room.

‘Better?’ Otabek asks as Yuri’s catching his breath.

‘No!’ Yuri snaps. ‘… Kind of.’

( _Sorry._ )

‘It will end,’ Otabek says after a moment. ‘And it will feel like forever, but you’ll probably stop growing so much by the end of the summer and you’ll have your balance back.’

‘You just don’t want me to be that much taller than you,’ Yuri says sulkily.

‘No,’ Otabek agrees. ‘But admit it: You do. It’ll be worth it in the end.’

‘Liar.’

‘When have I ever lied to you?’

Yuri stops short. ‘Fuck you,’ he says without any malice.

Otabek hums. ‘You should take up Lilia Alexandrovna’s offer. I believe she helped Nikiforov when he was our age, yes?’

‘I guess,’ Yuri concedes. And at sixteen, Viktor had been a star, champion of the junior world; Yuri is already beyond that. But if Viktor could do it at sixteen, then dammit, Yuri’s going to do better. ‘Why are you always right, dammit?’

Otabek chuckles and Yuri hangs up with a huff.

The free program should be on the front of his mind, but this crisis is more important. He shows up on Lilia’s doorstep with his things thrown in a duffel bag and his backpack, Lapsha tucked in a squirming mass of fur under one arm and a bouquet of lilies in his other hand. Lilia cracks a tiny smile at the flowers as she takes them before her face settles back into its normal stern, regal expression.

‘You know where your room is,’ she says, and steps back to let him in.

* * *

Somehow Viktor found out about the clothes problem, because suddenly there’s a cardboard box of cardigans and jumpers and trousers and jackets on the bench by his locker with an emoji smiley drawn on the flaps and well. Yuri’s in the middle of a crisis. He’s not going to turn it down, not when he reaches in and runs the expensive fabric between his fingers and you know what, he’s going to rock the hell out out of all of this shit.

* * *

He closes his eyes and sees Otabek there, taunting him, dressed in his tight t-shirt with his hint of gold eyeliner and a look that sets Yuri’s blood on fire with guilty yet shameless desire. It’s easy to make himself think that it’s fine he’s imagining Beka instead of the faceless, impossible soulmate on the other end of his bond like he used to when he reaches for the lotion and the box of tissues and… takes care of business.

If something so sweet could be called taking care of business, of course.

He’s incredibly grateful that Lilia’s walls are far thicker than the ones in the dorms. And that her bedroom is on the other side of the house from his. And that his pillows are so good at muffling his whimpers.

And he fucking knows he goes red all over when he sees Otabek over Skype and thinks about it. He wonders if Otabek can tell and he’s just being too chivalrous to say anything or if Yuri’s got another wonderful, horrible secret to keep for forever. A kiss is one thing, after all. This is dirty. Perverted. Shameful.

( _Not at all,_ something croons at the depths of his brain. _This is normal. Healthy. And Beka never has to know if you don’t want him to know._ )

( _But what if I do?_ )

* * *

‘Have you thought about your free program?’ Yakov asks him after he’s flubbed his easiest jump sequence, a triple flip-triple toe combination, for the fifth time in a row. Lilia shakes her head at him when he turns away without saying anything and stomps off, because that’s answer enough.

* * *

‘Yura!’

He whirls around, gouging out the ice under his feet with his pick and glaring at Viktor across the rink. Viktor waves cheerfully, his phone’s screen illuminated as it dangles from his fingers.

‘What?’ he snaps.

‘Come here. I have a present for you.’ Viktor smiles disarmingly.

‘Fuck that. You and Katsudon need to stop giving me shit! It’s not helping you!’ Yuri flips him off.

Viktor looks hurt. ‘I don’t always do things for selfish reasons, Yura,’ he says, and oh, it’s so strange but so nice hearing that from him after suffering from ‘Yurio’ for so long. ‘But you still need someone to choreograph your free program, no?’

Dammit, Viktor’s right. ‘I already told you,’ Yuri snaps, skating closer. ‘I refuse, idiot! Do you really want to lose that badly, huh? Or is your head still so far up your ass that you haven’t realised you’re setting yourself up for failure?’

It’s then that he hears the tinny laughter from the phone in Viktor’s hand and he realises that Viktor’s had someone on speaker since he spoke up.

‘Ah, Viktor, is that him?’ the voice asks in accented English. Then it moves into rapid French, of which Yuri understands absolutely nothing, and ends with more laughter. Viktor chuckles and infuriatingly shoots back something, also in French. With a snarl, Yuri lunges for the phone to see who’s laughing at him in another fucking language, but Yuri is still, unfortunately, far shorter than Viktor, who easily holds it out of his reach.

‘Of course I’m not choreographing for you,’ Viktor says with his infuriating smile, switching to English presumably for the listener’s benefit. ‘I can listen sometimes, and you’re right. You broke a record last time I did that, too, and I intend to put my name back where it belongs. I thought you and I might both benefit from something mellower, no? Less artistic?’

‘Ow,’ the other person says. ‘If that is what you really think—’

Viktor laughs. ‘I’m kidding!’ he exclaims, and winks at Yuri. He lowers his arm and holds his phone out to Yuri; there’s only a phone number, no name, but Yuri swears he’s heard this voice before, somewhere… ‘Why don’t you tell Yuri why you called?’

‘Ah, yes. Right. Mssr. Plisetsky, I think you know what I’m offering, yes? I would like to choreograph your free program, if you think that is a good idea.’

‘Who are you?’ Yuri asks bluntly.

The other person finds that incredibly funny, apparently. Viktor scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. ‘Ah, sorry, sorry. I’m sure you’ve heard of Stéphane Lambiel?’

Yuri almost drops the phone in shock. _‘What?’_

* * *

Stéphane Lambiel. Fuck. He’s dreaming, right? Surely it’s not the Stéphane Lambiel who had the honour of being the _only_ non-Russian skater with a poster on Yuri’s wall when he was in Juniors. It can’t be the Stéphane Lambiel he was obsessed with imitating when he was eleven. The Stéphane Lambiel he dreamed of meeting at competitions but never got the chance to see.

(The Stéphane Lambiel he’d had an embarrassing-as-fuck crush on as a kid—yeah, okay, maybe as a pre-teen, too, but who the hell doesn’t have embarrassing celebrity crushes when they’re young? Yuri can immediately think of one _very particular_ instance that went way too fucking far past childish fantasy into complete, utter, impossible bullshit.)

(If only his treacherous heart could keep clinging to those implausible fantasies instead of the ones made of knives and bombs.)

‘He’s good,’ Otabek says when Yuri tells him, which is a ringing endorsement by any and every standard on the planet.

‘He thinks I have rare fluidity,’ Yuri gushes. ‘Talent in my technical ability. That the world’s not ready for what I’m going to become this season, but he wants to make it see me. He’s worried that his work is not going to live up to Lilia Alexandrovna’s program. _Stéphane Lambiel_ is worried his program’s not going to be good enough for me.’

Hearing it from _Stéphane_ _fucking_ _Lambiel_ is a stark reminder that there are always eyes on him… and, apparently, they are not all critical. Yuri makes an embarrassing squeeing noise he would never, ever, ever do in front of anyone else and rolls around on the mattress in excitement.

‘I didn’t know you had such a hero complex, Yura,’ Otabek says dryly.

Yuri huffs. ‘Shut up and let me live. I’m not Katsudon. S’not like I want to get into his pants.’

‘I hope not,’ Otabek says, a hint of horror creeping into his voice. ‘He’s older than Nikiforov.’

‘Eww,’ Yuri says in sudden horror at that image. ‘Ew ew ew ew, what the hell, why would you even—’

‘You started it,’ Otabek says petulantly. Yuri puffs up in preparation for a bitch-fest that Otabek must see from a mile away because Otabek shakes his head and waves his hand dismissively. ‘Have your heroes, Yura. It’s fine. I’m kidding. Congratulations. You must feel very honoured.’

Yuri considers that. ‘I do,’ he says, feeling all that indignation drain out of him. ‘I am. Have you ever felt that before, Beka?’

Otabek blinks and gives Yuri that little, private smile that Yuri suspects is just for him, and wow, he’s going to think about that all day. ‘I have,’ he says. ‘And it was life-changing.’

‘Tell me about it?’ Yuri demands. Otabek visibly prepares himself for what Yuri thinks is going to be a great piece of juicy, rare Beka backstory before Otabek abruptly looks back behind him at something out in the hallway. He sighs. Yuri hears the faint, high-pitched ‘Bekaaa!’ in the background and snickers.

‘I will,’ Otabek says lowly as Yuri finishes. ‘I promise. One day I’ll tell you all about it.’

‘I’m holding you to it,’ Yuri says seriously. ‘And I’ll get videos and all sorts of pictures with Stéphane and we can talk about how fantastic this whole experience was when I defeat everyone, including Nature, and win everything.’

‘Of course,’ Otabek agrees with an air of seriousness. ‘Keep me updated.’

* * *

Whatever the hell his body is doing to him sucks. Hardcore. Because sometimes he has days like that, where he can’t contain his excitement and it spills out of him like fizzy soda after the bottle’s been shaken fifteen times, but sometimes he remembers that he’s currently a failure, that his chances of winning anything with a changing body are fuck-all compared to last season, and that, right, he’s keeping a major fucking secret from his best friend because he’s too scared to open his mouth and tell the truth. That his father hated him enough to do what he did. That his mother is so disgusted with him that she can't even bring herself to remember a birthday card every year. That _Babulya_ has been dead for years and _Dedulya_ is getting older and lonelier and soon Yuri fears he’ll have nothing, nothing, nothing…

The junior skaters are filing off the rink when he gets there. He recognises Anna, but he can't possibly bring himself to talk to her after that kiss. Her friend Dmitri, who reminds Yuri too much of his idol Viktor for Yuri to be comfortable talking to him now. Irina. Alexei. Yulia. Svetlana. Nikita. A mix of faces he used to know, the faces he used to be a part of when they shared gossip and vodka after competitions. It makes him stop at the railing, this realisation that when he left juniors, he left all of his relationships with them behind. They don't even look at him when they pass, and whether it's out of deference or disgust, Yuri doesn't know.

Fuck them. He doesn't care. But… but he does.

Shaken, he steps onto the ice. Yakov’s talking at him, but he’s not registering anything beyond the sound. Maybe it’s the look on his face that makes Yakov stop lecturing him, because he gives up and just waves Yuri off to centre ice so he can go start his music.

The Dragon music clashes horribly with his blue thoughts and reminds him very much that he has a goal in mind, and hell if he’s going to let it go. There are jumps to perfect. If he can improve his inconsistent quad flip and work his way up to a quad lutz, he can beat out Viktor for technical points. Quad loop, and he’s on JJ’s difficulty level. If he can push his body past the awkwardness and the clumsy, off-centre feeling, he’ll win. Right? Right?

Step sequence. Still sloppy. Spin, perfect. Always his specialty. Spiral into a quad flip and… landed. Not perfect, but not a touchdown. Knees ache, no big deal. Combination spin and the world dissolves into a blur of colours, white, and black.

What people must think of him.

(Poor Yuri. Poor, pathetic little Russian boy who dreams of being as tall and glorious as Viktor Nikiforov. Broken little Yurotchka, so pretty, you remind me of Zhenya Romanova, you know? Same pretty blue eyes, same fragile bird’s bones. Have you ever considered modelling, dear? What if the skating doesn’t work for you? What if you’ve peaked, little prodigy?)

The music fades out with the end of Yuri’s spin and he’s on his knees on the ice, begging to the empty stands. It’s a humble pose and it’s a lie, because Yuri would never bend a knee willingly to the thoughts swirling in his head and threatening to crack him open like an egg.

‘Tell me what you are thinking,’ a voice pipes up from the gate. Yuri whirls to his feet and spots the man from his old posters in a turtleneck leaning on the boards, his hands clasped and his smile warm and welcoming. Yuri tries to banish the blue from his mind, settling a determined half-scowl over his face. Play it cool, play it cool, you weren't just about to self-destruct again, dammit.

‘That I’d like to win all the way through the season, Mssr. Lambiel,’ he lies, gliding over.

Stéphane holds out his hand and Yuri has A Moment: Yes, his thirteen-year-old self would be having a meltdown right now. But Yuri has tasted gold and felt the crown of victory on his head; this is, after all, an introduction of mentor and pupil instead of celebrity and fan. It’s odd, to know that this is how his perspective has shifted. Yuri sees a hand offering him redemption instead of an autograph, and he’s sixteen. It’s strange.

‘I think that is a lie,’ Stéphane says before he shakes Yuri’s hand and lets go. ‘But you do not need to tell me the truth if you do not want to.’ He gestures to a bench and Yuri follows, wiping his forehead with the towel he left on the gate. The junior skaters on the rink watch them go. ‘And please, call me Stéphane. Mssr. Lambiel makes me feel old.’ He chuckles. ‘It is a pleasure and an honour to meet you, Yuri. Why don't we have a quick chat before you go?’

Stéphane is everything, Yuri learns very quickly, that Viktor is not. He is kind, attentive, humble, and empathetic. Unlike Yakov, he doesn't get exasperated when Yuri speaks too quickly or too sharply, and he is nowhere near as forceful as Lilia Alexandrovna. He reminds Yuri of _Dedulya_ , which is both comforting and strange. He has never been treated with such respect, and he suspects, incredulously, that it is because Stéphane is _impressed_ with him.

Well, of course. He won a fucking Grand Prix Final, Russian Nationals, and Euros. He’s never doubted that people would be impressed by him. Especially retired skaters.

Stéphane has a notepad with French all over it, a drawing of a set of arrows in a spin, Yuri’s name. He looks up at some point in their conversation to wave to Viktor, who is, apparently, glued to Katsudon for the day. While his eyes are on them, Stéphane asks, ‘Who do you consider to be role models in your skating career, Yuri?’

Immediately, Yuri says, ‘No one. I skate for myself.’

Stéphane chuckles. ‘I said that wrong. I meant when you were younger, of course. Before you medaled as a senior.’

Yuri sits back. ‘Plushenko,’ he says immediately. ‘Voronov. Menshov. Sotnikova. Leonova. Lambiel.’

Stéphane grins at that. ‘No need to flatter me, Yuri.’

‘I’m not!’ he protests. He huffs and looks away.

‘No one else?’ Stéphane pushes after a moment.

Yuri glances furtively at where Viktor and Katsudon are clinging to each other and laughing as they skate around on the rink before he reluctantly admits, ‘Nikiforov. And towards the end of my junior career, Katsud—Katsuki, I mean.’

Stéphane smiles and jots their names down. ‘And your current competitors? What do you draw from them?’

‘Motivation to crush them,’ Yuri says hotly. Then, quietly, he says, ‘I am… inspired by Otabek Altin.’ And elaborates no further.

‘Otabek Altin? The skater from Kazakhstan?’ Stéphane writes quickly in spiky scribbles. ‘The dark horse. He’s a very powerful skater. I hope to see how he evolves in future competitions.’

‘Me, too,’ Yuri says.

Stéphane pauses for a moment before tilting his notepad away from Yuri, underlining something, and shutting it. ‘Very good. I have some music I will email you tonight; listen to it and come back with your favourites. We can work from there.’

‘Stéphane,’ Yuri blurts as he turns to go. The Swiss skater pauses. ‘I wanted to let you know that my balance has been off lately because of a growth spurt.’ God, that sounds like a stupid excuse. ‘So I will work twice as hard to ensure that my body does not inconvenience me. I want to do your choreography justice.’

Stéphane gives him an appraising look before offering a confusing, gentle smile and patting Yuri on the shoulder. ‘I have no doubt that you will. But do one thing for me, please?’

‘What?’ Yuri asks, straightening. ‘Whatever it is, I’ll do it. No matter the cost.’

Stéphane steps away. ‘Be kind to yourself, Yuri,’ he says, and leaves Yuri behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stéphane Lambiel is many things. He is an established canon character in the YOI ‘verse. He is one of my favourite ice skaters of all time. He is Swiss. He choreographed not only for Yuri’s inspiration Yulia Lipnitskaya, but also Otabek’s, Denis Ten. And he’s a humble sweetheart, unlike some characters *sideyes*. Basically, I love him, and you should, too.  
> Yuri references a couple real skaters as inspiration besides Lambiel: Evgeni Plushenko, Sergei Voronov, Konstantin Menshov, Adelina Sotnikova, and Alena Leonova. Notably, Plushenko is one of the most decorated and famous names in the figure skating world; Sotnikova won gold in Ladies Singles at the Sochi Olympics.


	12. Silver Sand

‘I’m sending you music,’ Yuri says the moment Otabek’s face shows up on his screen. ‘Tell me which one you like better, and be honest because it’ll probably be my free program music, got it?’

Otabek blinks at him. ‘You want me to pick your free music?’

‘You’re not _picking_ it,’ Yuri lies. ‘I narrowed down my choices from what Stéphane sent me and I can't make a decision. So you’re just… helping me pick. Not actually doing the picking and _shut up, okay?_ ’

Otabek hides his grin in his sleeve. ‘I didn’t say anything,’ he says, muffled.

Yuri throws a pillow at his laptop screen and nearly knocks it off the bed. ‘Just listen, dammit.’

Yuri sends him the links to the YouTube videos and waits impatiently as Otabek pulls his headphones on and listens to the four pieces all the way through, looking thoughtful.

‘What’s your short program music?’ he asks at the end of the last one, and Yuri sends that too. ‘And your theme?’

‘ _Descente du Dragon._ And I don’t know,’ Yuri says shortly. ‘I’m still thinking about it. Just answer the question. Which one do you like best?’

Otabek hums. ‘The piano one.’

‘Great. Easy. Thanks.’ Yuri yawns. ‘How’s yours going, then?’

‘Fine. I’ve been choreographing.’

Yuri sits up straighter. ‘Really?! Isn’t that difficult?’

Otabek shrugs. ‘Yes. But I feel particularly inspired. Perhaps more so, now that I’m talking to you about it.’

‘Argh, stop, I’ll stop talking then.’ Yuri jabs a finger at the camera. ‘I’m not helping you win. Not that you will.’

‘Of course not,’ Otabek says mildly. ‘I’ll win on my own.’

‘Watch it, Beka.’ Yuri leans forward. ‘Well, now you know my music. It’s only fair that you send me yours.’

‘I’ll do one better. I’ll ask my coach to film my short program tomorrow for you. But some things are best left as a surprise.’ Otabek smirks at him. ‘You’ll see the free in competition.’

Yuri sputters. ‘Asshole!’

‘Always,’ Otabek offers wryly.

* * *

Otabek does send him his short program and Yuri thinks he feels his jaw hit the floor at how cleanly Otabek lands his _quad lutz_.

_Y: What the hell is that oh my god_

_Y: Beka *how?!?*_

But Otabek doesn’t text so Yuri straight-up calls him in the middle of his practice time, even though Yakov’s yelling on the other side of the rink and Mila’s giving him a look like a shark that just caught a whiff of blood in the water. ‘Even I can’t do that yet!’ he says without introduction when the line connects. Mila just smirks at him. ‘You can’t just—’

‘I did, though.’ Otabek sounds out of breath. ‘Still think you’re going to win, Plisetsky?’

‘Oh, you’re fucking on,’ Yuri says with a snarl and a grin that hurts his cheeks. ‘You want a video of mine?’

‘Anything you send me,’ Otabek says sincerely, and wow, if that doesn’t set Yuri’s heart hammering against his ribs, then what does?

‘I have a record to defend,’ Yuri says. ‘Quad lutz, Jesus.’

‘Please, Otabek is fine,’ Beka says evenly, and Yuri has to hold onto the railing as he doubles over with laughter.

‘You asshole, you know what I meant,’ Yuri says, gasping for breath. ‘Shut up. I’ll send you the video later.’

* * *

Stéphane comes back to Yuri with choreography fit for a god and Yuri is grateful. Really. It’s fluid, it’s nostalgic, and it feels like home, no matter how Westernised the music is. Stéphane isn’t even Russian and it feels like watching an ode to St. Petersburg. But all Yuri can think about beyond the elation of seeing Stéphane’s work is that it’ll really fucking suck if he can’t do it justice.

* * *

He falls. And falls. And falls.

He’s pretty sure the skin around his hips, knees, and thighs looks like he fell off a building, mottled as it is with what looks like every colour of the rainbow. _DIY soulmarks,_ he thinks darkly, poking at one large, purpling one and wincing. _Too much like Mama’s mark._ He unscrews the lid on his Tiger Balm and scrapes his fingers against the bottom, but… shit, it’s empty. He throws it haphazardly at the bin and winces.

‘Yurio, catch,’ is the only warning he gets before something comes flying at his head. It smacks into his palm before it knocks him out. He squints at the tiger on the gold lid and then at Katsudon, who rubs his neck sheepishly. ‘Whoops, I didn’t mean to throw it so hard.’

Yuri opens it and starts rubbing it into his calves. ‘Thanks. What’s in this stuff, anyways?’

‘… Huh. I don’t know. Magic? I can’t read Chinese.’ Katsudon shrugs. ‘Keep that one. I have a bunch at home.’

Katsudon laces up his skates efficiently and Yuri rolls his trouser leg back down. He feels Katsudon’s eyes on him as he moves.

‘It works for scar twinges, too,’ Katsudon ventures. Yuri freezes.

‘Don’t, Pig,’ he says sharply. Katsudon looks down. ‘It’s none of your fucking business, okay? I don’t care what your idiot coach told you—’

‘Nothing,’ Katsudon says in his infuriatingly quiet, Katsudon way. ‘You’re not trying to hide it like you used to. I saw.’

‘Yuri!’ Yakov yells from the rink. Yuri sets his jaw and looks away furiously, throwing his high-tops into his locker with a bang as he clatters around for his new, horrible, uncomfortable skates.

‘I won’t mention it again.’ Yuri doesn’t look up, but he can feel Katsudon’s eyes boring into his head. ‘But if you need to… talk about anything, let me know, okay?’

Yuri grabs the black strip of fabric hanging from the hook inside and slams his locker door shut. ‘When did you start caring?’ he asks heartlessly, even though really, that’s not what he meant. Katsudon recoils a little anyways, and Yuri stalks past him to get to the rink.

‘Thanks for the witch goo, Pig,’ he says over his shoulder, because Katsudon still hasn’t figured out that Yuri hardly ever means what he says when the red seeps into his thoughts. He wraps his forearm like he’s bandaging it up, pointedly pulling it tight when he passes a panting Viktor at the gate.

Practice goes no smoother, but he makes sure Katsudon sees him rubbing the ointment into his arm before the happy couple leave to… he doesn’t know, make out behind the rink or whatever it is they do when they think no one’s looking. Katsudon tilts his chin up and Yuri figures that counts as forgiveness.

* * *

‘We’re going out for lunch,’ Mila says, dropping her chin on his shoulder. She doesn’t have to bend anywhere near as far as she used to, he notices dully. ‘Coming?’

‘Yeah, sure, whatever,’ he agrees, and suddenly he’s scrambling for the passenger seat in Georgi’s car and everyone else is squeezed together in the back. He notes smugly that Mila has inserted herself neatly between Katsudon and Viktor, casually examining her nails. Katsudon ( _Yuuri,_ Yuri finally allows) has caught onto her and it shows in his blush.

‘So, Georgi,’ Yuri says when they’re on the road, keeping to English for Yuuri’s benefit. He’s not _that_ horrible. ‘You over that girl yet?’

Georgi makes a face at him. ‘Yes,’ he says sourly. ‘Are you going to keep laughing at me about it?’

‘Of course,’ Yuri says. ‘She was a bitch for leading you on and you were an idiot for not comparing soulmarks immediately. A massive idiot for not doing that after Anya.’

Georgi flinches. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right,’ he admits after a moment, resigned. Mila and Viktor start exchanging playful barbs in the back. ‘I am kind of stupid, aren’t I?’

‘Really stupid,’ Yuri agrees. ‘Maybe just about as stupid as Mila with her last boyfriend.’

‘Hey!’ Mila squawks, kicking his seat. ‘Not as stupid as Viktor for _pining_ after Yuuri for a year instead of just telling him about their marks.’

‘That was pretty bad,’ Yuuri comments.

‘Not as bad as the seventeen post—’ Viktor starts with a teasing grin Yuri catches in the mirror.

 _‘Vik_ tor _,’_ Yuuri cuts him off, horrified. ‘We never talk about that. Ever. Okay?’

Viktor’s expression changes from cheerful to quite possibly the sappiest, most concerned Yuri has ever seen him. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. Never again.’ He gives Yuuri a little smile that makes Yuri _ache_ with jealousy. ‘I thought it was really cute. I’m still incredibly flattered.’

‘What?’ Mila asks curiously, but Viktor solemnly shakes his head at her. Yuuri beams at him. ‘Alright, fine. So who were you talking to at the rink the other day, Yura?’

‘No one,’ Yuri says immediately, but he knows that’s weak. ‘My _Dedulya._ ’

‘Oh, has your grandfather finally allowed you to swear in front of him?’ Mila asks mildly. ‘Lucky. Mine is never that relaxed.’

Yuri grumbles and slouches in his seat. ‘Fine. It was Otabek Altin.’

‘Really?’ Mila says suggestively, and Yuri throws his phone at her. She catches it before it hits her in the face.

‘Please, I’m driving,’ Georgi says plaintively. Which is pointless, because they all forgot about lunch hour rush and they’re just sitting in traffic.

Yakov’s going to kill them.

‘Altin?’ Yuuri asks, and there’s something there in his stupid Katsudon-sixth-sense and Yuri’s tired of fighting this, really.

‘Yes. Otabek Altin. My best friend,’ he says fiercely. ‘Who landed a fucking quad lutz and has a fantastic short program and is going to blow you all out of the water. Maybe me, too.’ Oh, that gets him some looks. He scowls at them. ‘Or I’ll just annihilate you all after he helps me. Yeah?!?’

‘You’re not competing against me,’ Mila pipes up.

‘Watch me,’ he says, pointing a finger at her. She grins at him.

‘Get down, I can’t see out the back,’ Georgi complains. Then he actually reaches up, puts his hand on top of Yuri’s head, and shoves him back into his seat. ‘And put on your seat belt before I get pulled over.’

Yuri, stunned, does as instructed.

There’s a moment of silence where Yuuri stares at him in shock, Georgi fumes, and Viktor and Mila exchange a glance like they can’t believe that just happened. Then Viktor snorts and everyone starts laughing and Yuri finds that his giggles are the loudest of them all.

* * *

 Lunch is fine until Yuuri gestures up at something in the distance and says, ‘That woman kind of looks like you, Yurio,’ and everyone freezes.

‘Katsuki–’ Mila starts, but Yuri interrupts her, half deaf to the street noise around him behind the thudding of his heart.

‘What woman?’ he asks. His voice sounds horribly blank, even to his own ears.

( _Don’t clarify, for fuck’s sake._ )

Yuuri doesn’t say anything for a moment. ‘I must be mistaken,’ he says meekly, and turns back to his sandwich.

Good.

He finally gets it.

That shocks Yuri more than the mention of the billboard they never talk about, and even though Mila sends him worried glances every couple of minutes, he doesn’t speak at all beyond a mumbled thanks when Georgi slides him the rest of his fries.

* * *

 ‘Hey, Pig,’ Yuri says after practice. He feels incredibly calm, which is a first. Maybe it’s the practice from talking about it with Otabek. Maybe it’s because he’s actually finally fucking recovering from this stupid, stupid thing. ‘Can we talk?’

‘Of course,’ Yuuri says immediately.

Yuri walks him to the bridge and stares out at the water. They stand in silence for a while, the water rushing under their feet and the chill starting to fade from the air. Yuri takes a breath.

‘The model on the billboard. She looks young, doesn’t she? Mid-twenties, max? But she’s not. She’s 32. Zhenya Romanova, she’s my _mama_. Her real name is Evgenia Plisetskaya.’

Yuuri blinks at him. ‘So when you were born, she was…’ he starts.

‘Sixteen,’ Yuri finishes. ‘Barely. But you know, soulmates and all.’ He looks resolutely at the water.

Yuri knows he has Yuuri’s full attention, now, even though Yuuri hasn’t shifted to look at him. Good. That’s good.

‘I haven’t talked to her in eight years. She left me behind with my  _dedulya_ when she went to a photoshoot for the hell of it and this led to that and she came out of it all signed to a modelling agency and then she was on billboards all over the world.’ He laughs harshly. ‘She never really cared about me, though. Not even from the beginning. When my father–’ he chokes a little on that, ‘–was still around, I was just her little doll, her little kitten, and nothing else. After he was… gone, I wasn’t even that. Now I’m not worth more than a birthday card, if she remembers.’ He swallows thickly.

They stand in silence again.

‘Thank you for trusting me with that,’ Yuuri says quietly.

Yuri shrugs. ‘Everyone else knows about her. I never outright said it to anyone but–’ _but Viktor,_ he means to say, but doesn’t. ‘I think Yakov told them. You deserved to know, too, since we share a rink and all.’ He gets slightly more aggressive. ‘So don’t think you’re special or anything, hah?!’

‘Never,’ Yuuri says solemnly, and damn. Yuri thinks he means it. So he kicks Yuuri in the back and sends him sprawling with an undignified squawk across the pavement. ‘You know what I meant, idiot.’

‘I think so?’ Yuuri says, pushing himself back to his feet. ‘So… thanks? I guess?’

‘You’re welcome,’ Yuri says, shoving his hands into his pockets. ‘Let’s go before your mate comes looking for us. I don’t want to have to deal with you two together again today.’

* * *

He steps onto the rink and feels… calmer, somehow. Like the raging hurricane has settled its eye over him. Or maybe it’s passing and this is the edge of the storm, finally. Stéphane gives him an encouraging smile and goes to start the music.

He strings all of the elements together just as he’s shown and it’s… fine. Yakov had gruffly agreed to allow Yuri an attempted quad flip in place of his standalone quad toe, because Yuri’s already done that with both arms above his head and it’s getting _boring_ if people expect that and shit, he’s turning into Viktor, isn’t he. And his spins are perfect, they always are, and he can pull his leg up nearly parallel to his spine for his signature spirals, but there’s something about the rest of it that seems forced. Off. It’s not the choreography itself. He knows that. The way Stéphane skates it is beautifully fluid, perfectly emotional, and captivating to watch. But it feels like cardboard when Yuri does it and that’s not acceptable. Agape left him with a sense of love he hadn't realised he’d had; he’s supposed to feel something with this one, too, but he doesn’t.

It’s the step sequences. He’s certain of it. He does all of the pieces exactly as Stéphane shows him from the twizzles to the choctaws to the loops. He finishes out smoothly, and yet it doesn’t feel right. The choreographed sequence should be easiest; however, he feels disconnected from the music, just focusing on holding his balance and sliding from one piece to the next without stumbling and it shouldn’t be that way. He knows it shouldn’t. He remembers the difference between how he skated Agape last season for the first time and how he skated it at the GPF, Nationals, Euros, Worlds. This feels uncomfortably like the former and reasonably, it should; this is only the first time he’s practiced the whole piece as one. But he knows it _can’t._

He wipes the sweat from his forehead and drains half of his water bottle as he watches Mila execute a clean triple lutz with her left arm above her head, her bob bouncing around her face with the landing. She whoops and throws her arms up in celebration, whirling about on the ice to a smattering of applause from the juniors hanging off the banister. As she high fives Yuuri and steps off the rink to give him room, Yuri remembers to clap for her too.

If Yuri was captivated by Stéphane demonstrating his free program, it’s nothing to how Yuuri looks practicing his own. His runthrough is unrefined and he falls on his quad salchow and over-rotates his signature triple axel, which makes Yuri set his teeth with anger (sympathy) over the bruises and frustration because Yuuri is so damn inconsistent. But Yuri never takes his eyes off of the Japanese skater, even through the mistakes and the clear improvements that need to be made, because even Yuri can admit to himself again that Yuuri skates beautifully. His emotions are more raw than Viktor’s ever were, his desperation and determination blatant in every shift of his expression. He lives his music, his dance, his story. He breathes it, almost every single time. It’s why he won Viktor as his coach, nevermind that Viktor would have found a way back to his mate anyways if Yuri had actually beaten Yuuri in Hasetsu.

Yuri immediately knows the story Yuuri is trying to portray, even before he asks him what the program is called. In it Yuri sees a soft sort of affection, the promise of love before it happens. Yuri can picture it, too: The gross couple’s flirtations in Hasetsu. Dancing around each other. Yuuri’s disbelief. Viktor’s patience. Yuri wonders if Viktor was worried that Yuuri’s feelings for him would turn out to be merely platonic, or if he was really okay with just being bonded as friends for forever. But if this program is how Yuuri really felt, then Yuri is struck dumb with it, because in Yuuri’s skating, Yuri thinks he can see himself.

Yes, he sees exactly how everything played out in Hasetsu. Bashful embarrassment and ignorance and hope and finally, the reward. But Yuri also sees colourful tiles and a quiet confession, worn cobblestones and laughter, purple lights and guilty desire and a friendship that feels years old instead of months.

Yuri rips his gaze away from Yuuri as he pants in his finishing pose, his fringe damp with sweat and his chest heaving. Viktor claps enthusiastically, heart-eyes on the sidelines for all of ten seconds before he launches into a litany of harsh criticisms. Yuri turns away with an eyeroll; even after all this practice, Viktor is a still a god-awful coach.

Yuri almost wants to ask for Yuuri’s music just to listen to it, but that seems like too much of a reach. It’s not like he’s just another tentative friend. He’s a rival. A competitor. Someone Yuri has to crush.

( _But so is Beka,_ he reasons.)

* * *

It becomes apparent after a week of practicing that it’s Yuri’s step sequences, both the leveled and the choreographic, that need work. Stéphane even comments on them being weak points. Yuri thinks that must be incredibly disappointing to a man who is still well-known for his attention to style and character.

‘Don’t worry,’ Stéphane assures him. ‘You have plenty of time to learn.’ He tilts his head towards Yuuri on the sidelines, stretching his hips and listening to music. ‘Perhaps you should take some more time to observe your rinkmate. Learn his strategies. Find out why you like his sequences so much.’

Yuri sputters. ‘I never said I liked his sequences!’

Stéphane gives him a knowing look. ‘It is my job to learn about you in a short amount of time, Yuri,’ he says. ‘And I think I have learned quite a lot from just observing. You are not as sneaky as you think.’

Yuri crosses his arms and huffs.

‘I will not be here for much longer,’ Stéphane reminds him. ‘My students need me at home more than, I think, you do. I have given you all that I can. It is up to you now to make my work into something medal-worthy.’

Yuri nods resolutely, relaxing his arms. ‘I won’t fail you. I swear it.’ He tilts his chin up. ‘I willingly gave my soul and body for my skating last year. It will be no different this season.’

Stéphane laughs. ‘I remember thinking like that. I will not ask that of you,’ he says gently. ‘But if you are willing to give it, do not let me stop you. Just take my suggestion into consideration, _s’il te plaits_. Maybe even venture to ask him for help?’

Yuri grumbles, but Stéphane doesn’t leave for the night until he reluctantly agrees to consider it.

* * *

 ‘Stéphane thinks I should ask Yuuri for help,’ Yuri says sourly.

‘Yuuri?’ Otabek asks, and Yuri colours.

‘Katsudon. Shut up, asshole, I have a dilemma.’

Otabek hums. ‘It wouldn’t hurt to ask for advice. He is your rinkmate.’

‘I know he is. But I also spent all of last season trying to destroy him and that’s not going to change. He’s my _rival,_ Beka.’ Yuri flops on his bed.

‘So am I,’ Otabek points out.

‘I know,’ Yuri says, throwing his hand over his face. ‘And I helped him with his quad salchow last season so he kind of owes me.’

‘So what’s the problem, then?’ Otabek asks, cocking his head a little.

‘You know what the problem is!’

‘I don’t,’ Otabek says, his brow creasing. ‘He owes you a favour and you’re friendly enough with him to not call him food names. What’s stopping you?’

Yuri groans. ‘God, fine, I’ll ask him for help. But if I’m humiliated by it I’m blaming it all on you, okay?’

‘Fine,’ Otabek agrees with a shrug. ‘I promise I won’t be much affected.’

‘You dick,’ Yuri complains. ‘I won’t talk to you for a week.’

Something flickers in Otabek’s expression at that. He looks off-camera. ‘You won’t be humiliated. I’ll bet on it.’

‘Don’t,’ Yuri warns. ‘It’s fine, whatever, I’ll ask.’

‘How are you feeling?’ Otabek asks, completely diverting the subject, and Yuri frowns at him.

‘Fine. Tired. Frustrated. Glad I’m talking to you and not Yu–  _Katsudon_. What’s it to you, huh?’

‘Nothing,’ Otabek says, which means _something,_ but Yuri’s too tired to press him on it.

‘Fine, be weird.’

Yuri gets up to get a snack and sits back down to Otabek with one headphone pressed to his ear, watching something intently on his phone screen.

‘What?’ Yuri demands.

‘Your short program is very moving, Yura,’ Otabek says, pulling the headphones away from his ear, and shit. Yuri hopes it’s dark enough that Otabek can’t see his face. ‘It suits you.’

‘That’s the point,’ Yuri says.

( _Thank you._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuri's Free Program: [Once Upon a December (Instrumental Piano)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs2VL_HYG9Y)  
> Yuuri's Free Program: A piece I made up called 恋の予感 | Koi No Yokan, meaning roughly 'the feeling when you meet another that the two of you are going to fall in love.'


	13. Verdigris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small note: This chapter is unbeta'd, but hopefully I've worked it out so all future ones will be checked before they go up. I had to change my tactic on that. Apologies if this is a little rougher than ones in the past!

Stubbornly, Yuri tries to work through his issues by himself. He knows what he has to do to connect himself to the music, though going to a waterfall and standing under it for hours seems far less appealing in the absolutely freezing waters here than it did in the cold streams in Japan. He listens to the song with its lyrics and watches the stupid movie and knows that, deep in his conflicted heart, one of the reasons he so readily agreed to Otabek’s suggestion for the song was because his mother had taken ‘Romanov’ as her stage name. And he _really_ doesn’t want to have to think about her when he’s performing this with more than just his rinkmates and coaches watching.

And everything is fine. Every element is just _fine_. But _fine_ doesn’t win gold medals and that’s the whole point of this, isn’t it?

Yuri finally caves and asks Yuuri a week after Stéphane goes back to Champéry.

‘Yuuri,’ he calls aggressively, and takes delight in how Yuuri starts at him calling him his actual name. ‘Show me how to do my step sequences right.’

Yuuri actually stands there and boggles at him for so long that Yuri takes a picture of him and he still doesn’t pick his jaw up off the floor.

‘What?’ Yuri demands after it passes right past silly and into outrageously ridiculous. ‘You still owe me a favour, Pig, but if it’s so stupid I’ll just deal with it by myself.’

Yuuri blinks at him and steps back onto the ice. ‘Show me how you’re doing them?’ he asks calmly, and so Yuri presses play on the remote, slaps it onto the railing, and goes back to centre ice to run through his program again.

‘I see,’ Yuuri says thoughtfully. He looks a little nervous. ‘It’s a beautiful routine. I don’t think I can do it—’

‘Oh my god, shut up,’ Yuri says with a groan. ‘I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think you could do the step sequence better than me like you always fucking do so _please.’_

Yuuri opens his mouth, wisely shuts it at Yuri’s glare, and takes Yuri’s spot in the middle.

‘Give me a couple tries,’ he says. ‘Um. Maybe watch? And then we can talk about it and I’ll see what I can do to help you.’

‘Great,’ Yuri says sourly, and gets the hell out of the way to watch.

He tamps down on his jealousy when Yuuri, though rough and slightly off from never having done it before, manages to make the sequences look nostalgic and mournful rather than blank and emotionless. Instead, Yuri listens for once and takes note of the differences between his way and Yuuri’s way.

* * *

It doesn’t help.

* * *

‘What’s your theme, Yurio?’ Yuuri asks him after another week of failure and it’s already June and he’s on the verge of panicking because he hasn’t struggled this much since he was twelve and everything’s going to shit if _Yuuri_ is worried about him, isn’t it?

‘I don’t know,’ Yuri admits, scowling down at the ice. ‘I thought I’d figure it out after I got this stupid program down. And I’m not doing something as stupid vague and abstract as your “love” from last year.’

‘Love?’ Yuuri asks mildly, and Yuri throws his water bottle at him. Yuuri manages to dodge it this time, which means that Yuri’s growing weak. Unacceptable.

‘What’s yours then, hah?’ Yuri demands. Yuuri blushes and Yuri immediately starts gagging.

‘Hey! I haven’t even told you yet.’ Yuuri chuckles at him. ‘It’s “Devotion.”’

‘Disgusting,’ Yuri says immediately. Yuuri shrugs.

‘Maybe. You don’t have to think of it in the romantic way. Your grandfather is devoted to you, isn’t he? And we’re devoted to our skating.’ Yuuri looks at him. ‘I’m not ashamed to be devoted to Viktor. He’s my mate and my fiancé.’ Yuuri pulls off his gloves and skates to the edge of the rink. ‘Don’t be afraid of that, Yurio. You’ll understand. It will come to you in time.’

Yuri watches him leave for the locker room, an unpleasant swirl of conflicted emotions stirring low in his stomach. _He doesn’t know._ But Yuri thought… after the Tiger Balm thing…

He doesn’t know what to think about that. That Viktor had kept his secret from even his other half, to whom he must tell absolutely everything, makes everything rearrange itself in the drawer in Yuri’s head labelled ‘Viktor fucking Nikiforov’. It reconfigures itself into something that finally makes sense again and calms the last vestiges of his bitterness towards Viktor because really. That’s fucking loyalty.

Theme. Theme. Theme. Unfortunately he has no clue, because now all he can think about is that all-knowing Yuuri Katsuki has no idea about this massive part of his life and suddenly he has to…

No. That’s ridiculous. He’s only ever willingly told that story to one person, and he doesn’t intend to go through it again.

* * *

‘This is hopeless,’ he complains to Otabek that evening, pressed into a corner of his room. He can hear Lilia, just barely, shuffling around in the kitchen for her evening tea on the other side of the wall. ‘I’ve never struggled so much with a program. It’s supposed to be like breathing, no matter how difficult it seems. I just…’ He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and groans. ‘How am I supposed to win if I can’t even fucking do it right?’

‘Yura, it’s only June,’ Otabek points out. ‘You have plenty of time to refine it. I have faith in you. You endure, don’t you?’

‘Yes? No? Maybe?’ Yuri scowls. ‘But I can’t be unsure! I _have_ to be certain that I will. I _am_ going to win. I have to. Failure is not an option.’

Otabek shakes his head a little. ‘ _Meniñ külkili soldat._ You don’t always have to win. There is dignity in losing, sometimes.’

‘Is there?’ Yuri fires back. ‘Because I felt pretty fucking undignified every single time it happened to me last season.’

‘Yes.’ Otabek says quietly. ‘I think I would know.’

And then Yuri feels shitty because he _knows_ Otabek knows what that feels like. Yuri remembers all-too-well what his rationale was while he was stumbling through the hotel after Worlds with no place to go but the obvious: Leaned up against Otabek’s shoulder. Because Beka understands. He wanted gold for his country and didn’t even come back with a bronze from the GPF. Not a single gold after the Challenger series last season. Always beaten out by Yuuri, sometimes by JJ. Even Yuri can’t imagine that kind of self-disappointment. But Otabek doesn’t ever seem to mind that much. There is only the road ahead. The victories in the future. And Yuri knows, like sometimes he knows when Amina will show up in the background of Otabek’s video calls or when Otabek will be too tired to talk for more than five minutes over the phone or when Yuri’s going to wake up with a hard-on because he’ll have dreamed about Beka’s molten eyes and his bitten-red lips and the noises he’ll make when someone finally gets their hands on him, that Otabek will win at least one major competition this season. How can he not, with that glorious quad lutz and his surprisingly gentle music and who knows what else?

‘Russian for god’s sake, asshole,’ is all Yuri says, but from the warm smile he gets in return, he knows, as he always does, that Otabek understands.

Yuri never really got over Worlds. Maybe it’s time.

‘I don’t think so,’ Otabek says. ‘I have to irritate you somehow.’

‘Can you not?’ Yuri huffs to Otabek’s low giggles. ‘Fine, keep your stupid Kazakh secrets to yourself.’

They talk.

‘Yura,’ Otabek says when the conversation draws to a close and Yuri realises that it’s  nearly two in the morning and he hasn’t done his maths homework that his tutor expects… today. Shit. ‘Why is it so important that you win?’

‘When is it ever not important?’ Yuri asks honestly. He shifts. ‘I don’t know.’ He does. ‘What the hell am I without my skating, Beka? I’m not a whole person. I’m always going to be a little broken. Incomplete. Yu– Katsudon was talking about how I’ll understand devotion when I meet my mate but it’s not going to happen.’ He’s resigned to it. ‘I’m never going to have that piece of me. If I can win, if I can make up for it by being great, then it’ll be okay.’

Yuri watches Otabek swallow. He looks ready to say something monumental and Yuri braces himself to hear it.

‘You’re not incomplete,’ Otabek says carefully. ‘You have never been incomplete. You _will_ never be incomplete. Your mate does not make you whole. Kadyr was Kadyr before he met Roxane. Dina was the same Dinara before and after she met Nura.’ Otabek leans in slightly. ‘Whether or not you win gold will not change who you are. You will still be Yuri Plisetsky, regardless of how you do this season or any season after. And the person with whom you will eventually fall in love will not change that, either.’

And Yuri knows Otabek means to say something else, but he can hardly think about that when he actually has to concentrate on keeping himself composed.

‘Thanks,’ he manages, strangled. ‘You fucking sap.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Otabek says softly. ‘Sleep well, _meniñ_ _alt_ _ın_.’

Yuri knows that one, at least.

He closes his laptop with a quiet click and buries his face in his hands, bawling like a fucking snot-nosed toddler. 

* * *

( _I_ _’m in love with you, idiot,_ he means.)

* * *

He sees pictures of all his friends from Almaty on Instagram sometimes and misses it so, so much.

_@k-nazayov mentioned you in a comment:_

_Best night with best friends. #summer #fogisgone #blessed @otabek-altin @amir-mi @dinasaurus @princessnura @denisthemenis and always a spot for you, @yuri-plisetsky_

He’s never, ever had a problem with homesickness before. Ever. But looking at the six of them tangled up in a heap and smirking mischievously at Kadyr’s phone, careless and free and begging for him to climb through the screen and join them in their pile is so enticing that he almost wants to try it. Yuri looks at Otabek, who offers a smile to the public that Yuri has never seen him come close to giving during competitions, and misses it fiercely. Misses that it is in Almaty that Otabek smiles like that and not anywhere else in the world.  And Yuri knows that he does the same thing with the same smile in that same city, not so different from St. Petersburg and yet like being in a completely new world.

It makes his chest ache like fucking mad.

Nothing about this makes any sense. He spent a week in Almaty. Not the summer, not a year. Yet he has never wanted to return so badly to St. Petersburg or Moscow the way he does to Kazakhstan. It almost physically aches to sprawl here on his bed in Lilia Alexandrovna’s empty house when he knows that the Kazakhstanis are all lying on each other on some faraway rooftop, looking up at the sky with their big dreams.

Yuri has big dreams, too. Big fucking dreams and impossible hopes.

 **_Y:_ ** _Thanks for the fucking reminder_

 **_Y:_ ** _Now I just want to pack a bag and run away_

 **_K:_ ** _I’ve got a spare bedroom if Beks won’t take you, man_

 **_K:_ ** _But let’s be real_

 **_K:_ ** _Beks is going to take you for the rest of his life_

 **_Y:_ ** _Shut up_

 **_K:_ ** _I only speak the truth, Russia_

 **_K:_ ** _And you texted me first ;)_

* * *

Yuri skates around the edge of the rink, dodging the juniors as they scramble to get off the ice under Yakov’s fierce stare. He feels almost numb, like the rink is colder than it’s supposed to be and it’s sinking into his bones. He tries to shake it off, doing warmup crossovers at increasingly higher speeds until he almost runs into Mila.

‘Woah there, Tiger,’ she teases, a firm hand on his arm to keep him from falling flat on his face and embarrassing himself even more. ‘Bad night?’

He shakes her off. ‘I’m fine,’ he snaps, and skates to the left side of the rink to practice his quads.

Toe. Done. Salchow. Done. Salchow with an arm—  _shit._

Maybe that was a little much.

‘Shit,’ he repeats out loud, brushing the ice chips off of his stinging arm and wincing. He presses his forehead into the ice for a moment, breathing through his frustration instead of, well, punching the ice, before he pushes himself back to his feet and keeps going.

‘Yura,’ Mila starts, but Yuri grits his teeth and keeps going, running through his list even though he’s starting to feel the strain and his quad flip becomes a triple flip and fuck, fuck, fuck.

‘Yuri!’ Yakov shouts, but Yuri’s already stomping off of the ice, fumbling with his skate guards and his arm stings like fuck and today’s not going to be his day, is it?

He notices past his fury that his hands are shaking.

* * *

He wants to focus. He really does. But he finds that the rink feels colder than it should and all he can think about is how itchy his scar feels or how much he wants to check his phone for text messages he knows are not there and Skype notifications he hopes will be and this is a fucking problem. So much so that Yakov and Lilia notice, snapping instructions to focus from opposite ends of the rink. Lilia makes him vacuum the whole house when they get home. He bitches about it but the complaining feels weak when he knows he deserves it.

Even his rinkmates start paying attention. Mila keeps shooting him questioning looks and Georgi helps disinfect his scrapes and Viktor asks if he’s having trouble sleeping ( _yes_ ) or if he’s eating well ( _maybe_ ) and his answer is always, ‘Shut the fuck up!’ ( _Maybe I have a problem._ )

He misses his music cue in his practice runthrough for Stéphane’s routine. He trips on his own ankle on the way out the door. He runs headfirst into Viktor twice and actually _apologises_ the second time, which leaves Viktor staring after him with a little smile that makes Yuri want to kick him, reconciled or not.

And he can’t fucking help it. He stares off into space more than he should, thinking of the smell of leather and Otabek’s laundry detergent and the drag of his fingers against Yuri’s scalp, gently tugging at his hair. He stops using his study playlist when he half-asses his way through his assignments and starts listening to Otabek’s mixes more often than not when he’s scribbling on his maths homework. He sleeps with Otabek’s bear tucked in his arms instead of his many stuffed cats and dreams about dirty things that start adding to his guilt when it happens again and again and again. He thinks of victory on a silver platter and the wind whipping against his face on the back of a motorcycle and Viktor’s expression when Yuri finally beats him in competition and the fucking rock that Otabek is when Yuri needs him to be and god dammit.

He thinks everyone is gone while he sits here in the locker room and screams into his hands while he does his damndest not to cry because really, how much more pathetic can he get? The sound echoes around all that metal, leaving the place feeling hollow as it dies out.

There are rules about this. Not just about soulmates and shit, but about friendships. And not just about Otabek, but rules about what’s important in a life like his and the skating always has to come first, always. Not stupid crushes and infatuations.

(Let’s be real, Plisetsky, you’re beyond that. You’re totally fucked.)

 _Skating is not your life,_ Viktor’s voice reminds him.

He doesn’t even notice that someone sits down next to him until he finally straightens and sees Yuuri perched on the end of the bench, his glasses slightly crooked on his face, his hands loose in his lap, and his eyes clear and warm. Yuri has found over time that an anxious Yuuri is so focused on not losing it that he comes across as cold and uncaring, but this Yuuri is open and inviting. Quiet. Waiting.

‘The fuck are you still here for?’ Yuri demands.

‘I thought I might practice a runthrough while the rink was empty,’ Yuuri says in near perfect Russian. Yuri almost falls off the bench and the corner of Yuuri’s mouth twitches just a little.

‘Go on, then,’ Yuri says sullenly, curling in on himself. ‘Laugh. I know you want to.’

‘Not really.’ Yuuri waits.

‘Where’s your fiancé then, huh?’ Yuri presses, his eyes darting towards the rink. ‘Is he still lurking around, waiting to spring you with flowers or something equally unnecessary and gross or—’

‘Viktor’s at home,’ Yuuri interrupts him. ‘It’s just me. Sometimes I just need time by myself on the ice. It helps me think.’

Yuri digests that and dismisses it for later. ‘So why are you still here if you’re done with the ice, Pig?’

‘I just thought…’ Yuuri trails off before raking a nervous hand through his hair. ‘I’m not very good with this sort of thing.’

‘What, dealing with other people’s shit? Welcome to our skating club, Katsudon. It only took you six months.’ Yuri scowls at him and Yuuri has the decency to look abashed for just a moment before he clears his throat.

‘Yurio, you’ve been kind of distracted lately.’

‘No shit,’ Yuri says snappishly. ‘Thanks for noticing.’

Yuuri takes a breath and presses on. ‘Is there anything you want to talk about?’

Yuri wants to tell Yuuri to fuck off back to his doting mate and their stupid dog but he can’t muster up the energy to not say what he actually means this time. He’s so tired of all of this hiding and waiting and really, he feels like if anyone deserves his story straight-up, it’s Mila. But keeping it inside is going to make him explode or injure himself, and yeah, Yuuri’s a sneaky shit, but Yuri trusts him for some stupid reason. Maybe it’s because Yuuri’s so new in Yuri’s life that he almost has to be trustworthy. Maybe it’s because he’s the odd one out. He’s a black coat in a sea of white, blue, and red, _JAPAN_ spelled out clearly on his back in a place so Russian it should be soaked in vodka.

‘Listen, Yuuri,’ he says, and Yuuri immediately straightens in surprise. ‘Shut up. I’m going to tell you something and you’re going to sit there and listen to the whole thing and we’re never going to talk about it again unless I bring it up. Understand?’

Yuuri nods resolutely, like it’s a personal fucking mission to listen. Good.

Yuri tugs off his bracelet and tells him.

* * *

He doesn’t just talk about the scar and his soulmark. He manages that without turning into a blubbering mess. Turns out talking to Otabek about it makes this discussion a billion times easier. He talks about meeting Otabek in Barcelona and their Skype calls, his conversation with Viktor after Worlds, Almaty, Amina and Kadyr and all the rest, his growing issues.

He says nothing about his Otabek problem, but he thinks that clever Yuuri figures it out anyways at the way his expression grows more and more thoughtful the more Yuri talks. It’s that look that makes Yuri want to flee, the one that says Yuuri has fucking superpowers and knows exactly what’s going on inside of Yuri’s head. And come on! He knows _for a fact_ that he’s not that predictable because he spent fucking years idolising Viktor _‘Surprise’_ Vasilievich Nikiforov and some of it (okay, dammit, a lot of it) has rubbed off on him.

That doesn’t stop Yuuri’s dark eyes from looking like they’ve been x-raying Yuri’s head and examining all of his feelings for his best fucking friend.

Yuuri does not say anything like ‘I’m sorry’ about Yuri’s mark, which is a relief because Yuri’s had it up to here with people apologising for what his shit of a father did. Instead, he digs a bag of Japanese candy out of his locker and the two of them suck on the fruity pieces (well, Yuuri sucks on them; Yuri gets impatient and crunches them between his teeth) in relative silence.

‘Thank you for trusting me with all of that,’ Yuuri says around a piece.

Yuri shrugs. ‘Viktor already knew about the mark. He found out years ago.’

Yuuri blinks at him and Yuri realises his mistake, nearly choking on his candy to recover but Yuuri just chuckles and waves his hands at Yuri until he calms down.

‘… thanks for not reacting like a dick,’ Yuri says begrudgingly.

Yuuri pats him on the back and tosses the bag of candy back into his locker with a clatter. ‘I can walk home with you?’

‘Hell no,’ Yuri says vehemently. ‘Go back to Viktor and be all sappy and happy and shit. And tell your stupid dog that my cat’s worth twelve of him.’

Yuuri smiles at him. ‘I’ll give him a belly rub for you,’ he says teasingly, and Yuri’s not sure if he means Viktor (ew) or Makkachin, but if it’s the latter then it means Yuuri’s getting better at understanding what Yuri means and it’s all okay, really.

* * *

‘I told Yu– Katsudon about me,’ Yuri says, closing his eyes with Otabek on speaker. It’s late for Yuri and even later for Otabek, and the day’s been long; turning the lights back on now would be hell.

‘Yuri, I don’t care if you call him by his real name,’ Otabek says. ‘Most people find that to be polite.’

‘Yeah, well when have I ever been polite?’ Yuri asks snarkily. ‘Or for that matter, when have I ever been “most people?”’

‘You make a fair point.’

Yuri grins at nothing. Then the grin becomes quiet giggles and over the tinny phone connection, he can hear Otabek snickering.

‘Kadyr knows what it is,’ Yuri says, long after the laughter has subsided into quiet breathing. ‘My scar. He saw it at the club and figured it out. He’s smart.’

‘He’s a pain,’ Otabek says fondly.

‘He said the same thing about you,’ Yuri fires back. ‘And I agree. You’re both shits.’

‘Then what does that make you?’ Otabek asks.

‘Shut up.’

‘Hmm.’ Yuri knows that’s a _Never_ in Beka-speak. ‘Was there a reason you decided to start talking about it?’

Yuri sighs. ‘I’m tired of hiding shit, Beka. I’m distracted and I’m changing and I don’t like it. If everything’s changing, that might as well, too.’

‘Oh.’ Otabek is silent for a moment. ‘Is it working?’

Yuri roles over and thinks about it. ‘I’m not sure,’ he says slowly. ‘I guess we’ll see.’

‘How are you feeling?’ Otabek asks, right as Yuri goes to hang up.

Yuri snorts. ‘You ask me every time.’

* * *

Yuri gets it. He needs to let go of everything. Not just Worlds, but all of his frustrations: His teenage clumsiness. His guilt and distraction over Otabek. His grief over _Babulya._ His extreme hatred of his parents. His bitterness over the damned scar.

And until he steps off of the ice and lets it all rush back in, he can.

Perfect spin. Perfect step sequence. Perfect quad toe-single loop-triple salchow. Shaky quad flip, touchdown on the quad loop, but that’s fine, he can fix that.

Finally, skating _December_ feels as easy as breathing.

 _‘Davai,_ Yurio!’ Yuuri congratulates as Yuri slides his skate guards on. Yuuri rather suspiciously wipes at his eyes.

‘Oh my god, are you crying?!?’ Yuri demands with utter glee.

‘Maybe,’ Yuuri admits. ‘But look around. I think everyone else is, too.’

Yuri does and he spots Georgi wiping his nose on his sleeve, Mila clapping with wet cheeks, Viktor shamelessly smiling like a proud big brother minus the weeping. Two of the juniors, Svetlana and Dmitri, try to hide the fact that they’re tearing up by looking very resolutely at the locker room doors. Even Yakov and Lilia, sitting two metres apart on the same bench, have a glittering sheen to their eyes.

‘Oh,’ Yuri says.

‘Imagine how it will be in competition,’ Yuuri comments with a congratulatory hug that Yuri is too surprised to shove off. ‘Looks like I have my work cut out for me, huh?’

Yuri looks to his coaches. Yakov doesn’t say anything, which is surprising; usually he has something critical to say, especially about that sloppy attempt at the quad loop. Lilia looks softly proud, which is something Yuri has never, ever seen on her face.

 _Oh,_ he thinks.

‘I have a theme now,’ Yuri offers before Yuuri diverts his attention to Viktor as the latter steps onto the rink, wiping his eyes, too.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’ Yuri grins at him. ‘“Moving On.”’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Otabek:  
> Meniñ külkili soldat: My funny soldier.  
> Meniñ altın: My gold.
> 
> God, that boy is gone on Yuri. How Yuri doesn’t realise it is a fucking mystery to both you and me. (I’m also sensing a possessive streak… hmmm, Beka, hmmm)


	14. Cyan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ack okay so worldsentwined on Tumblr made fanart inspired by last chapter's late-night conversation between Otabek and Yuri. Find this beautiful piece of art [here!](http://worldsentwined.tumblr.com/post/159490982299/hooray-i-finally-finished-this-is-based)

Yuuri’s Thai friend would have a field day laughing at all of them, because on their rare off-day the temperature in July hits a record 29°C and suddenly everyone’s drooping in the sun like wilting flowers. Yuri’s dying out in the sun, and no, that’s not a _fucking_ exaggeration, Mila, how can you stand it?

Viktor can afford to have his AC blasting so that his whole flat feels like sitting in a refrigerator. That’s miles better to Yuri than sitting alone in his bedroom and waiting for Otabek to get off the rink or Kadyr to get out of class so Yuri has someone to talk to, so he finds himself sitting in one of Viktor’s dining table chairs, drinking lemonade with Makkachin curled up at his feet. Mila and Georgi are there, too, shamelessly mooching off of the cool. Mila dangles her feet off the counter and Georgi pokes around in Viktor’s well-stocked fridge while Viktor and Yuuri tangle their legs together on Viktor’s too-small couch and chatter in Japanese.

Yuri’s kind of impressed, not that he would ever admit it. He even tried to put effort into learning it after he came back from the disaster that was Hasetsu and decided Japanese was too fucking hard. It’s been what, a little over a year since Viktor went chasing after Yuuri? And from the lack of corrections Yuuri’s throwing his way, Viktor can speak it fluently.

‘It’s a soulmate thing,’ Mila says, plopping into the chair next to him.

‘What is?’ he asks, sipping dourly at his lemonade.

‘The languages. I was telling Yuuri that his Russian is rather impressive,’ Mila says, spinning her glass between her hands and making the ice clink around inside. She touches the green soulmark on her neck and sighs. ‘I wonder what language my soulmate speaks natively. Maybe I should try learning them all and see which one comes easiest.’

‘You want to try learning every language on the planet?’ Yuri asks dryly. ‘That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. What if they speak Russian, hah? Then you’ll have wasted all that time.’

Yuri wonders how easily Otabek’s soulmate will learn Kazakh, if they don’t already know it. All Yuri knows is that it sounds like gibberish to his ears, and if that doesn’t say anything about the stupidity of his desires, then what does?

Mila notices the look on his face and flicks lemonade at him. ‘Maybe I will, just to spite you,’ she says, misinterpreting it. He sticks his tongue out at her.

‘I don’t think Yura’s the one who will end up spited if you do,’ Georgi says dryly, daintily sipping at his own cool drink. He’s ended his refrigerator raid empty-handed and instead tosses an apple up and down in his hand.

‘You can’t say anything about it,’ Mila shoots back. ‘You’re the idiot who never bothers to check your girlfriend’s mark before you fall head-over-heels for her.’

Georgi makes a wounded sound and Yuri flicks lemonade back at her. ‘You dirty hypocrite,’ he accuses.

Georgi looks slightly mollified.

‘Fair,’ Mila concedes with a shrug. ‘Or maybe I just like the sex.’

Yuri gags at her. Then he thinks about what he does alone and flushes. Does _that_ make him a hypocrite, too?

‘Children,’ Viktor reproaches from the couch, and Georgi throws his apple at him before Yuri can do the same with his lemonade. Viktor dodges it and it bounces sadly on the floor.

‘I’m a day younger than you, prick,’ Georgi complains. ‘You can’t call me a child!’

‘I think you’re all children,’ Yuuri adds unhelpfully. ‘And please don’t throw things in my flat.’

‘It’s not your flat,’ Yuri says. He throws a piece of ice at him to make his point and it nails him in the forehead.

Yuuri blinks at him, utterly nonplussed. Yuri snorts and they all start snickering.

‘See if any of you get _anmitsu,_ then,’ Yuuri says archly, and every mouth shuts, every single pair of eyes goes to the fridge and back to Yuuri’s death glare before they all offer subdued apologies. Viktor nuzzles up against Yuuri like a needy poodle and Yuri’s worried he’s going to start whimpering like the dog under the table until Yuuri nuzzles him back and… and…

Okay, it’s not that bad. He’s seen worse from them.

Mila’s giving him a thoughtful look when Yuri turns back and he dares her to say something with his own death glare. She shrugs at him and flicks more lemonade at his face.

* * *

It’s not like they all collectively decided that it was a good idea to camp out on Viktor’s floor, but a couple of hours of free AC and refreshing snacks turn into a few hours of gossiping and then a few more hours pressed together for movies and suddenly the whole day is gone and it’s nearly midnight and Yuri doesn’t really want to make Georgi drive him back to Lilia’s. Yuuri has extra tatami mats and futons tucked away for god knows what reason and suddenly there’s two on the floor and a third propped up by the wall, but Yuri immediately claims the sofa and dives onto it with a sigh. Georgi and Mila shrug at each other and take to the floor with the futons. Yuri hears Viktor and Yuuri chattering in whispered Japanese in the hallway until their bedroom door clicks shut and the whole flat falls into near silence. The AC goes off and it’s fine; the night is comfortably cool again.

Yuri tugs the blanket over his shoulders, closes his eyes, and thinks of Otabek.

 _I should call him,_ he thinks groggily, right before he drifts off.

* * *

‘Waking up on the wrong side of the bed’ is a massive fucking understatement when Mila sneaks up behind him and shoves him off the sofa. He lands on the floor with a thud and a squawk and Georgi shoots upright like someone slapped him, his eyes wide and unfocused and his blanket pulled up to his chest. Mila ignores him and shoves her phone under Yuri’s nose, grinning like a shark.

‘What the fuck?’ Yuri snarls at her, batting at the screen. ‘What was that for, bitch?’

‘The Grand Prix assignments were released,’ she says gleefully, ruffling his bedhead and making it worse. ‘I have Skate America and the Trophée de France.’

At that, Yuri reaches out and tries to snatch her phone out of her hands, suddenly wide awake. ‘How did we miss that? When did it come out?’

‘Last night,’ she says casually. ‘Coach Yakov’s pissed. I have eight missed calls and a very yell-y voicemail.’

Yuri gives up trying to fight for hers and digs his out from under the sofa cushion, squinting at the screen. Eight for him, too, plus a terrifying single call and accompanying voicemail from Lilia Alexandrovna. He puts it off and pulls up the the listings, raking over placements with a ravenous eye. ‘I’m Skate America and Rostelecom.’ He narrows his eyes at the list. ‘No JJ, no Yu— Katsudon in either of them. I’m against Viktor in Moscow and Otabek in Milwaukee.’ At that, he can feel himself smiling. ‘Game fucking on.’ Then he scrutinises it a little more and frowns. ‘No JJ at all. Where the fuck is he? Did he get himself disqualified or what?’

Georgi peers over his shoulder. ‘What about me?’

Yuri skims the list. ‘You’re France and Japan.’ He grins wickedly at Georgi. ‘Otabek in France and Katsudon in Japan. Good fucking luck.’

Georgi swears colourfully under his breath. ‘Whatever. It’s fine. I’ll win. Why am I still here?’ He looks around blearily before stumbling to his feet. ‘Tell Viktor and Yuuri I said thanks. Sleepovers, god.’ He looks slightly horrified at himself before he flees for the door. It slams shut behind him.

‘Poor Zhora,’ Mila says sympathetically. She pads off down the hallway and pounds on the bedroom door as Yuri checks his Skype app and feels a wave of guilt wash over him at the missed calls from Otabek. He sprints for the bathroom and locks himself inside right as Viktor steps out in a dark blue robe, blinking blearily at Mila as she shoves her phone in his face, too.

Too much to try to get Otabek to answer a Skype call without Wi-Fi. Yuri straight up calls him, his back to the bathroom door for extra protection of his privacy.

Otabek picks up after the second ring. ‘Oh, you’re still alive?’

‘Shut up, my phone was on silent and it was hot as balls here. I had a weird day. You saw the assignments, right?’

‘Hmm.’ Yuri can hear Otabek's jacket shift on the other end. ‘Skate America is in October.’

‘October.’ Yuri repeats. He tilts his chin into his palm, rereading the Grand Prix assignments on his phone. This feels surreal, going back through this process again. It feels like just yesterday he was obsessed with knowing Yuuri’s every move, ready to stamp him out like a cigarette butt at a moment’s notice.

‘Not so long,’ Otabek comments. ‘I’m going to win it again.’

‘You are _not_ ,’ Yuri insists, eyeing the other assignments. No Yuuri at either of Yuri’s competitions, but Viktor at the Rostelecom Cup. Hell yeah. If there’s any place to upset Viktor’s winning streak, it’s on home territory. Then a thought occurs to him as he’s scrutinizing the names and he grins in the dark. ‘It’s your birthday then, isn't it?’

‘Hmm? Yes.’ Otabek pauses. ‘A week after.’

‘Then I’ll bring you a present,’ Yuri says with conviction. ‘The best fucking present you’ll ever see. Guaranteed. Gotta make up for Almaty.’

‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ Otabek says. ‘It’s just a birthday.’

‘Shut up and let me do something nice for you. We’re friends, aren’t we?’ Yuri sticks his tongue out at the phone, even though Otabek can’t see it. ‘Don’t make a big deal out of it if you don’t want to, but I’m going to do it anyways, so suck it up.’

‘Hmm,’ Otabek offers. It’s the best answer Yuri’s going to get, so he counts that as a win.

They’re both quiet for a moment. Someone revs their car’s engine outside and speeds away. Viktor and Yuuri laugh on the other side of the door; Yuri would bet that they’re hugging it out on the floor or doing something equally sappy, and whatever, it’s their flat.

‘I had my coach film my free skate,’ Otabek says. ‘It’s rough.’

That’s a question. Yuri knows it. ‘Yeah, I want to see it. No way you’re making me wait until October.’

‘When I get home, then.’

Someone pounds on the door.

‘Yura! Get out here and stop hogging the bathroom!’ Mila complains.

‘Leave me alone, _Baba!’_ he snaps back, but hangs up and opens the door anyways.

* * *

There are two heavy, cream-white envelopes waiting at the counter in the rink. One’s addressed to him and the other to Viktor and Yuuri. He takes the one with his name written across the front in fancy, silver cursive English and tears it open, skimming the fancy card.

‘Oi, Viktor!’ he shouts at Viktor when he and Yuuri show up. ‘You’re letting JJ Leroy beat you? Really?’

‘Beat me how?’ Viktor asks, blinking. Yuri waves the invite under his nose and scowls.

‘JJ’s getting married before you. How could you do this to me?’

Viktor picks his up off the counter and opens it with more care, skimming the contents before smiling and passing it to Yuuri. ‘We’ll have to send them a gift! Ooh, what do you think they’ll like? What do married couples need?’ He looks worried for a moment. ‘Yuuri, what are we going to need?’

‘That’s not the point!’ Yuri snaps before Yuuri can answer. ‘The point is that you–’ Yuri jabs at Yuuri’s chest, ‘–beat him at Worlds and he’s _still_ getting married before you. I thought the deal was that your stupid ceremony was going to happen when you won, hah? So why is this happening to me?’

Yuuri chuckles softly at him. ‘I know he’s a little difficult, Yurio, but I think it was very nice of him and Isabella to invite us to their wedding. He must respect you a lot if he wants you to be there.’

Yuri stops short and stares down at the invitation, suddenly confused. Yuuri’s right, of course, because who sends a wedding invitation to someone they don’t like? Who in their right mind, not that JJ is, sends a wedding invitation to someone who openly hates them without some sense of respect? Like hell Yuri would send JJ an invitation to anything, much less a wedding. So what the hell does this mean?

‘Oh, look at this,’ Yuuri says, holding a separate leaf from inside the envelope and looking surprised. ‘“Mr. Leroy would like to announce that he will not be competing in the upcoming figure skating season to spend time with his soulmate after their marriage. He thanks his fellow competitors for a fulfilling and educational season and hopes to see them next season and in Pyeongchang.”’

‘He’s _what?’_ Yuri demands, outraged. ‘He’s just giving up the season to go cuddle and shit? What the fuck, JJ?’

‘Ambitious of him, thinking of the Olympics already,’ Viktor comments.

‘What, it doesn’t bother you that he’s not competing?’ Yuri demands.

Viktor and Yuri look at each other and Viktor shrugs. ‘Of course he wants to take the season off. Why wouldn’t he? I would be more surprised if he didn’t.’

Yuri stares at the two of them. ‘Soulmates are garbage,’ he declares vehemently, and stomps off.

* * *

Yuri waits in the locker room until everyone else has gone into the rink before he tugs his computer from his backpack and sets it on a bench.

‘JJ’s not competing because he’s getting married,’ Yuri says in lieu of a greeting. ‘Isn’t that fucking stupid?’

Otabek raises an eyebrow. ‘He’s not competing? I was wondering.’ He shakes his head a little. ‘I don’t understand it, but if that’s the path will make him happy, then he has my congratulations.’ He narrows his eyes at the camera. ‘Are you at practice?’

‘Yeah. But you’re not, and I want to see your video.’ Yuri leans forward impatiently. Otabek gives him an unamused look and Yuri rolls his eyes. ‘If texting it to me is too much, you could just email it, old man.’

Otabek raises an eyebrow at him. Yuri’s Skype DM pings with Otabek’s contrary video message. ‘You could wait until you’re finished practicing.’

‘Yeah, but what’s the point in waiting when you’ve just given it to me?’ Yuri clicks on the link and listens to it out loud. He’s a little shocked that the music is far less… macho, he guesses, than what Otabek used last season for all of his programs. There’s something less confrontational and more inviting in Otabek’s skating, this time. He’s not as fluid as some of the other skaters, certainly, and Yuri chalks that up to quitting ballet, but the style of it suits Otabek’s frame. All of Otabek’s past routines have been the prideful performances of someone who sees the world like a warzone and knows they’re surviving. This one… ‘It’s kinda sappy, Beka.’

‘I know.’ Otabek looks down at his hands.

Yuri thinks he spots a little bit of a colour high on Otabek’s cheeks and at the tips of his ears. ‘You’re blushing,’ Yuri accuses. ‘What the hell, Beka. Who is it, then?’

‘No one,’ Otabek denies.

‘Liar,’ Yuri shoots at him. He feels a little like he’s bleeding out, like all the feeling’s draining away from his fingers and toes and he’s going to die a little bit.

‘Alright, fine.’ Otabek shifts. ‘It’s just kind of fucking cheesy, okay?’

‘What?’ Yuri demands. He’s never heard Otabek swear before (and wow, it’s kind of sexy—no no no no, let’s not go down that path now, dammit) and it throws him off a little. Looking at him now, Yuri realises that Otabek looks kind of nervous. ‘Just spit it out already, god.’

‘Don’t laugh at me. I just,’ Otabek clears his throat. ‘Having you in Almaty was… I can’t describe it. Do you remember what I said to you in Barcelona?’

‘No.’ _(Yes, how could I forget?)_ Otabek looks at him patiently until it clicks and oh. Oh. Wow. ‘You mean it’s for _me?’_

Otabek shrugs. ‘You inspire me.’

Yuri doesn’t know what to say. Well, no, that’s a lie. He knows exactly what to say, but when he tries to put it into actual words, it sticks in his throat like over-watered rice.

‘Yura?’

‘God, Beka,’ Yuri manages. His vision’s going all blurry. ‘You fucking sap. I don’t deserve your routine.’

‘Of course you do,’ Otabek says quietly. ‘Don’t cry, please. It’s just—’

‘I’m not crying,’ Yuri insists, wiping furiously under his eyes. ‘Seriously, I’m _not._ Why do you keep doing these things for me? What am I supposed to say?’

‘Nothing,’ Otabek answers. ‘You’re my best friend. You don’t have to say anything.’

‘Yeah, okay, but most people don’t make skating routines for their best friends,’ Yuri says. ‘So what gives?’

Otabek looks down. ‘Yura, I—’

‘Yuri!’ Yakov yells from the doorway. Otabek flinches. ‘You’re late!’

‘I know!’ Yuri snaps back. ‘Leave me alone, I’m coming!’

There must be something about the look on Yuri’s face that keeps Yakov from dragging him out onto the rink himself. He just scowls at Yuri and leaves.

‘You should be more respectful to your coaches, Yura,’ Otabek says reproachfully. ‘They have to deal with you, Nikiforov, Popovich, Babicheva, all your juniors…’

‘Alright, alright, you’ve made your point,’ Yuri says turning back to him. ‘I have to go. Skype you again tonight?’

‘Tomorrow,’ Otabek says. ‘I have a set tonight.’

Yuri nods and points an accusing finger at his camera. ‘You need to stop pulling shit like this. I can’t believe—’

‘Yuri Plisetsky!’ Lilia Alexandrovna calls sharply from the doorway, and Yuri’s scrambling. Confident as he is in himself, a season’s worth of living under Lilia’s roof has instilled terror in his heart.

‘Bye, Beka!’

* * *

Yuri can’t stop thinking about it all the way through practice. He knows there’s a stupid look on his face and his eyes are probably red, because he’s pale as fuck and it’s hard to hide when he’s been crying. But there’s a new sense of determination in his work, because if his free program is an ode to St. Petersburg, then his effort into it is an ode to Almaty. It’s the least he can do to start.

After he’s exhausted himself practicing and adjusting to his centre of balance, as he always has to do, he leans on the railing with his water bottle and lets Mila join him. They watch Viktor practice without his music, pouring his heart and soul like he’s never done before into a routine Yuri knows is dedicated solely to Yuuri Katsuki. And it’s not gross, or sappy, or even that ridiculous. If his best friend can dedicate his program to Yuri, then why is this any worse? Yuri is many terrible things, but he’s not a hypocrite. If he admits anything to himself as he watches Viktor skate, it’s that it’s kind of sweet, actually.

‘You look happy,’ Mila comments.

‘I am,’ Yuri says honestly.

‘What happened?’

Yuri smiles down at his water bottle. ‘I have the greatest friend on the planet. No fucking arguments about it. I’ll fight you.’

‘Aww.’ Mila ruffles his hair and he bats at her hand. ‘That’s really cute, Yura. Why?’

‘Shut up.’ Yuri grins. ‘Nothing. Everything.’ His smile dims a little. ‘It’s unfair. I want…’

Mila waits for him to say something, but he doesn’t know what to say. He should trust her; he’s trusted her with so much else. But how does anyone talk about crushes in a world of soulmarks? Mila is so open about her mark, willing to date around even when she knows they’ll never be serious, careless about old protocols and societal rules. Yuri wants to be like that. He wants everyone to be like that. But it’s not the case, is it?

‘I want a lot of things.’ Yuri glares at the ice. ‘I want my best friend to not be in another country and I wanted to win Worlds last season and I want to kick Viktor out of gold at this year’s Grand Prix Final. I want my programs to make people cry like Yuuri’s did last year. I want some piroshki.’

Mila laughs and throws an arm around his shoulder, tugging him towards the doors. ‘Well, we can make one of those happen right now. Come on.’

* * *

Yuri doesn’t go to JJ’s stupid wedding in August. Are you serious? But there’s something about the wedding invitation that he can’t throw away that leaves him thinking about JJ and what the hell that means.

The thing is, Yuri knows exactly what it means. It means what Yuuri said it means: It means that JJ must, in some confused, idiotic interpretation of Yuri’s obvious dislike, think of Yuri as a valued competitor. A _friend,_ even, and wow. It’s not like Yuri goes from hating him to suddenly wanting to share all of his secrets over coffee, but there’s a difference between being a dick and meaning it and unintentionally being a dick. Yuri thinks about it and nearly makes himself sick, spending that much time with his mind on all of his interactions with JJ, but the more he thinks about it, the more he realises that JJ was never malicious when he was being an asshole. He’s arrogant and proud and it makes him offensive, but…

Fuck, he’s not thinking about this anymore. That’s it. Whatever. One less competitor for the GPF means one step closer to the gold, and Yuri needs to prove that he has grown into himself and learned enough to deserve that medal.

On a whim, he picks something off of JJ and Isabella’s wedding registry and buys it for them anyways.

* * *

‘I think we should go out,’ Mila says one afternoon, when they’ve both fallen enough for new bruised hips and bruised egos. ‘I’ll take you somewhere. We can go dancing or something. Just the two of us.’

Yuri watches Viktor land his quad flip perfectly, as always. ‘Yeah, okay,’ he says. ‘Let’s go.’

* * *

Mila takes him somewhere in the city he’s never been, somewhere with rules loose enough that they don’t even ask him for his ID. His ripped jeans are too short now, but Viktor left him a pair of dark blue jeans that actually fit and so he throws those on under the top of his exhibition costume from last season and a windbreaker, because really, any excuse to wear that purple blazer is a good enough excuse for him. This club’s not nearly as cool as the one in Almaty, but it’s better than spending the night holed up in his bedroom with Instagram and the teddy bear that no longer smells like Otabek. It’s a little dingy, but the lighting’s kind of cool and Mila’s coming back with a drink for him and suddenly it doesn’t fucking matter. Who says he can’t have fun at home?

They clink glasses and whatever the fuck is in Yuri’s goes down his throat with a burn. Then she puts something else in front of him, and then one more. Then they dance and he’s too drunk to be able to compare this to Almaty, which is great because it would fail in every sense.

For one, there’s no Otabek.

But he’s not kissing anyone tonight. There’s no need. It’s just him and Mila and a whole bunch of strangers for whom he gives zero fucks and who probably return the feeling. Yuri dances for no one and everyone, a fucking tiger in a crowd of cattle, and he feels nothing but the music, the sway of his hips, the readjustment of his balance to the height he didn’t have in Kazakhstan.

Everything’s great. Just fine. Even when the world’s spinning and even outside it feels like he’s walking on the deck of a ship caught in a vicious storm. Mila giggles by his side and throws an arm over his shoulder, and that simultaneously steadies him and makes him want to fall over while she waves for taxis that pass and pass and pass.

It starts raining and you know what? Fuck the rain. He doesn’t deserve that shit. Loudly, he tells the rain that, and Mila laughs again. They tilt their faces up into the downpour and swear colourfully at the sky and laugh and people give them weird looks but fuck them. He doesn’t care. Really, when did he ever care what people thought of him?

He sneaks back into Lilia's house through the window he left cracked open and catches his foot on the sill, hitting the floor with his face and hoping that it won’t wake her up. And suddenly, you know what, it’s later in Almaty, isn’t it? Otabek’s set is probably done and it seems like a really good idea to call Otabek right now because Yuri misses him so much his body aches with it.

‘Yura?’ Otabek asks. His voice sounds all funny. Oops. Yuri probably woke him up.

‘Beka!’ Yuri greets, and hiccups. ‘Beka, Beka, I had to call you. It was–it was suuuper important.’

‘Are you okay?’ Otabek asks. Yuri can make out the concern in his voice and it’s really fucking sweet of him, worrying about Yuri. Yuri giggles.

‘’m great,’ Yuri says convincingly. The noise Otabek makes, however, does not sounded convinced. ‘Alright, fine, asshole, I miss you, ‘kay? Like, it hurts. A lot. I want t’ see you soooo bad. And not through the fucking computer screen, like I want t’ touch you and know that you’re really there. Is that normal?’ Then he starts laughing again.

‘Yura, you’re drunk,’ Otabek says softly. ‘Drink some water and go to bed. Please?’

‘Alright, alright, you nag.’ Yuri complains, peeling the windbreaker and his blazer off and tossing them haphazardly on the floor. ‘Wait wait wait, Beka, don’t go, I wanna—I need to know.’ Otabek is quiet on the other end and Yuri worries that he might have scared him off. ‘Beka, I’m sorry, don’t go, please.’

‘I miss you too,’ Otabek says. ‘I miss you a lot.’

‘Oh.’ Yuri blinks into the dark. ‘You fucking sap.’

Otabek huffs a quiet laugh on the other end. ‘I don’t want you to have a bad hangover tomorrow. Please drink some water. Have a snack.’

Yuri giggles. ‘’Kay. Stay with me?’

‘I’m in Almaty, Yura.’

Yuri hears him shift on the other end. Oh, he’s in bed. That’s nice.

‘I know, ’m not _that_ dumb. I mean, y’know, stay on the phone with me?’

Otabek hums. ‘Only if you go get water.’

‘Fffffine,’ Yuri whines, and sneaks out to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Otabek is so extra.


	15. Magenta

Lilia Alexandrovna takes him to the designer for a final fitting of his costumes three weeks before Skate America. This year’s costume feels almost more important than last year’s, debut aside, and though he normally doesn't care about his costumes as long as they’re cool enough to meet his standards, it feels like this year’s needs to be perfect.

Yuri pulls his short program costume from its tissue paper, unfurling it with a flick of his wrist. It looks plain and boring at first, composed of just swathes of black spandex and chiffon. But then he holds it up to the light and spots strands of two-toned thread running through it, hints of orange and red peeking out through the black. Like cracks in the surface of the Earth, he thinks, running it between his fingers. It's certainly not the flashiest costume he's ever worn. Maybe too subtle.

It's not until he puts it on that he falls in love. When the fabric stretches across his broadening shoulders it looks even more like it's cracking, strips of dark red and black that he hadn't noticed running from shoulder to rib giving the impression that he's a volcano, just waiting to erupt. One sleeve is sheer black fabric and the other dark, dark red and opaque, stretched all the way to his fingertips on both hands.

'It's not done,' the designer says, hovering over his shoulder. 'We haven't put the rhinestones on it yet but that can be done in a week at most. You'll have it by Friday, I think. Are you... happy so far?'

He turns to her and beams. 'It's so cool,' he says with great enthusiasm. 'What's the other one look like?'

His free skate costume is made of heavier fabric. It's not a bodysuit, he notes with slight surprise when she hands it to him. He squints at it and pulls the top from the hanger, holding it in his hands and feeling how light it actually is. It's a deep, royal purple, embroidered like traditional Slavic robes for a prince. Strong across the shoulders, the v neck lower than usual... It's an embrace of his masculinity that his competition costumes have never offered him before. It's almost an homage to his old exhibition costume, if anything at all. When he tries it on it falls like heavy, expensive fabric but feels like wearing chiffon. He holds out his arms, testing his mobility by bringing them up above his head and finding that it’s not as difficult in a more complicated costume as he had imagined. He glances in Lilia Alexandrovna’s direction and sees her approval in the inclination of her chin.

‘You can take that one home,’ the designer says. ‘Test it out on the ice and bring it back if you need changes.’

He slides the top back onto the hanger and thanks her before Lilia has the time to glare at him for his manners.

* * *

They’re fine. Everything’s fine. Better than fine, actually, which is exactly where he wants to be. But shutting his suitcase over his clothes and digging his passport out from his t-shirt drawer and dropping Potya off for boarding makes it all seem so final.

He looks down at the extra tickets in his hands and wonders if it’s too much. If a week after this year’s GPF is too soon, however it goes. But he’d scraped together all of the leftover prize and birthday money he’d accumulated from last season and this is what he can do. What he wants more than anything. Just looking at them makes Yuri’s heart hammer against his ribs. He shoves them back into the envelope and seals it with a cat sticker, as if making it more lighthearted will force him to stop worrying about how Otabek will react to them.

But fuck it, if Otabek can give him tickets to Almaty, then Yuri can give him tickets to St. Petersburg. It’s only fair.

‘Yurotchka!’ Lilia calls irritably from the front hall. Yuri stuffs the envelope into his backpack and scrambles to catch up with her.

* * *

He’s tired after the flight. He always is. Mila suffers his wrath with an equally exhausted smile and an aborted attempt to ruffle the hair he thoughtfully put back in a braid in the car before they got to the airport. Then they step out of the terminal into baggage claim and he’s bombarded by a hundred overexcited fangirls with cardboard signs and their stupid cat ears and right, yeah, he forgot about the Angels. He’s been that focused on everything else. He blinks at them and scowls before he tugs his hood up over his head and endures a couple of exhausting pictures while Mila blows him a kiss and goes to wait with Yakov and Lilia for their baggage.

He feels like a bow, the string pulling back tighter and tighter with every autograph and selfie and especially with the kiss on the cheek that a particularly overzealous fan leaves him. When Yakov barks at him and they let him go, he stumbles out of the mass and finds that there are fifteen different pieces of paper with phone numbers and _Soulmate?_ written across them stuffed in his pockets. He has the tact to ball them all up once he’s inside the taxi and out of view of his fans and god, Americans are insane.

Mila looks like she might poke him before she decides against it, dutifully taking the ball of numbers from him and shoving them in her own pocket. She’s smiling at her phone; Yuri peers over and sees that it’s a selfie of herself and another girl, beaming for the camera while Yuri scowls in the background, his crazy fans clinging to his clothes and holding out their phones for pictures.

‘Cute,’ he says curtly, and curls up to stare outside at the dimming sky.

‘Are you here yet?’ he texts foolishly, right before he remembers that, oh yeah, Otabek why-text-you-when-I-can-just-call-you Altin won’t answer him anyways. Yuri checks his Instagram feed instead and finds pictures of the other skaters and their arrivals: Emil Nekola, Seung-gil Lee, Michele and Sara Crispino. There’s a picture of JJ and Isabella doing his stupid hand-thing for the camera on top of the Eiffel Tower. A candid of Yuuri curled up with Makkachin, gesticulating animatedly and not noticing that Viktor’s taking pictures. Dina and Nura eating noodles. A Caucasian girl standing on top of a skyscraper whom Yuri assumes is Roxane by the hearts in Kadyr’s caption.

He can be calm and cool when they get to the hotel. Really, he just wants to go to bed, but no way is he going to sleep in a taxi. He can hold out for the hour it’ll take to get to the hotel and check in. And of course he’s going to try to find Otabek, but he resigns himself to waiting until morning, because honestly, Beka’s probably just as jetlagged as he is.

Mila spots someone inside and grins, making a beeline for… oh. The Crispino twins. Yuri watches her throw her arms around Sara and laugh while Yakov grumbles under his breath and pays their fare. And then Yuri drags his suitcase into the lobby and spots Otabek scrolling on his phone, standing out of the way of the excited but tired skaters and all of their respective entourages and the world just… stops, for a moment.

The thought of _this doesn’t happen to friends_ goes through his head very briefly. And yeah, Yuri usually has some sense of decorum in him, buried deep down and almost always ignored in favour of his anger, but even Lilia’s disapproving glare can’t stop his tired ass from abandoning his suitcase and sprinting across the lobby to attack Otabek with a hug and god. _God._ Yuri’s definitely a little taller than him now but it doesn’t change the fact that Yuri thinks he could drown in the feeling of Otabek’s arms wrapped around him.

‘Hey, asshole,’ Yuri mumbles when they pull apart.

Otabek just smiles.

* * *

Well, Yuri thinks as he bounces on his toes next to Yakov, he’s wide a-fucking-wake now. He might vibrate out of his skin if he doesn’t talk to Otabek, press his shoulder against him, casually throw himself across his lap, _something._ It was easy to be apart from Otabek, much as Yuri might have missed actually talking face-to-face with him, but now that they’re a metre apart from each other Yuri can’t stand the thought of not talking the night away in the same room. So he checks in and waits to make sure that his coaches and Mila are long out of sight before he makes a beeline for the room number he’d spotted on the card sleeve in Otabek’s hand, rapping on the door just once before Otabek opens it and lets him slip inside.

They stand there for a moment, just staring at each other and saying nothing. It feels like an entire conversation between them.

( _Hey._ )

( _Hello._ )

( _I missed you._ )

( _I missed you, too._ )

( _Was your flight as shitty as mine?_ )

( _Probably worse._ )

( _How’s Amina?_ )

( _She’s fine. How’s your grandfather?_ )

( _He’s okay._ )

‘You’re taller,’ Otabek finally says out loud. He holds two fingers to the crown of his head and moves them horizontally until they hit Yuri’s forehead. ‘Damn.’

Yuri grins at him. ‘I win.’

Otabek snorts softly. ‘You wish.’

Yuri pushes past him and collapses face down on top of his bed, avoiding the black suitcase (boring) left haphazardly on the floor. ‘C’mere,’ he mumbles in English into the comforter. Might as well start practicing again now if he has to face everyone testing out the rink tomorrow. ‘Tell me about everything. All of it.’

The desk chair’s wheels squeak a little as Otabek drags it towards the bed. ‘Everything?’ he asks quietly. ‘That’s months worth of everything.’

 _Months._ ‘Yeah, I know.’

‘You sure you’ll last through it?’ There’s a bit of amusement to that.

‘Of course not. Come here.’ Yuri pats the other side of the bed and Otabek hesitates for a moment— _Oh, shit, is that too much?_ —before he gets up and slumps onto the mattress.

‘Roxane came to visit,’ Otabek says, and his voice is quieter, now that he’s closer. ‘She’s still there. Kadyr’s ecstatic, but Amina’s heartbroken. I’ve never seen someone in such an epic pout.’ He pauses. ‘Well…’

‘Shut up,’ Yuri mumbles into the pillow, hiding his grin. Otabek chuckles softly.  

‘Hmm. Everything?’ Otabek shifts. ‘We stole all of Amir’s classmate’s left shoes for a revenge prank. The look on his face when he showed up at the school in just his socks was priceless. I’ll have to show you the pictures…’

It’s all filler and it’s exactly what Yuri wants. He falls asleep to the sound of Otabek’s voice, low and melodic, in his ears.

* * *

Yuri’s slated for third in the final group on short program day and he’s nothing but calm after watching Nekola’s frighteningly technical routine, monstrous in points despite the touchdown on his last jump. He’s calm when Lee executes an almost equally difficult routine but puts just about as much emotion into it as Yuri felt before he figured out how to skate _December_ correctly (i.e., nothing). And he’s calm when he steps out into the arena, his hair wrapped up in a braided crown on his head and dark red makeup and eyeliner spread by Lilia’s careful hand around his eyes, patterns dotted like rocks in lava up his temples.

He’s calm when the music starts and he’s calm through the first elements. It’s only when he goes to execute his first jump, a quad sal-triple flip combination, that his arms feel too heavy and awkward and he makes a last-moment decision to forgo pulling his left above his head as he’d planned. _Shit._ It’s distracting and he knows he’s going to lose presentation points as he focuses on making sure the rest of it’s perfect instead of the story, but even then he finishes it out on his knees with only his signature double-arm quad toe to gain extra difficulty points.

He passes Otabek in his black vest on his way off the rink, his jaw clenched and his hands in fists at his side. But the determined yet soft look in Otabek’s eyes makes the tension seep from his body and he remembers this, this moment when one of them has gone and the other will aim to beat the score. Yakov hands Yuri his skate guards and Yuri clenches them tightly in his fist, but his disappointment doesn’t stop him from offering his ‘Davai, Beka,’ and customary vehement thumbs-up as he heads to the kiss and cry.

He didn’t fall and he didn’t really make a mistake. But it’s still disappointing to see his score so far below his record, higher than everyone else’s though it is.

Otabek, on the other hand…

Otabek skates beautifully. The analytical part of Yuri notes, of course, that Otabek is still not as flexible as his competitors. It doesn't matter because his presentation this year, a deviation from the programs of the past, is much more the focus of the piece. He’s deceptive in his jumps, sticking to tamer elements and stringing them together into combinations before he takes off on that quad lutz that had Yuri freaking out the first time he saw it and—

—lands it perfectly. Yuri would venture to say it was possibly better than Viktor’s ever was.

Otabek finishes with a single spin on the ice and gesture of thanks to the audience as they go wild for him. Yuri screams and claps from his place in the stands and watches the scoreboard as Otabek bumps Nekola to third with a dignified bow.

* * *

Crispino executes a frankly underwhelming free program for a former GPF contestant but doesn't fall. Lee falls twice and leaves the ice with his teeth clenched so tight Yuri thinks he might snap his jaw off. There’s a newcomer, Kieran Daley, who skates for Ireland and actually manages to beat Lee’s free program score. Nekola’s program is just as technically terrifying as the first, right up until he lands wrong on his quad loop and limps off the rink no more than a second after he’s done, grimacing with pain. Yuri feels the pressure this time but gives Otabek a vehement thumbs up and gets that soft smile in return, and oh. Right. This is the routine for him, isn't it?

Otabek doesn't falter. He is as flawless as he was last season in the technical execution of his jumps, spins, and spirals, but this time there’s something more compelling about the way he moves through his choreographic sequence, the character he plays that Yuri will have to make him explain later. And not because it’s threatening to make him cry, dammit.

Otabek’s scores are incredible. That should be the catalyst for his nerves, because Yuri’s score would have to be near Katsudon’s record to win, which he’s certainly capable of… if he can get his arms over his head and land everything. But it’s not the stress of beating Otabek’s scores that gets Yuri in the end: It’s the finicky trickiness of his difficult quad loop, the one he could barely land at home and then thought he’d be able to handle but couldn’t.

He’s not even mad when he stands to Otabek’s right with the silver and Daley on the left. He knows he deserves what he has, and he knows Otabek deserves that gold. Otabek doesn't smile for the cameras but the pride glitters in his eyes anyways, glowing with responsibility for the aqua and gold flag in his hands.

‘You win this time,’ Yuri says, bunching his own flag back up as Otabek steps off of the podium. ‘But I’m going to crush you at the Final.’

Otabek raises a brow at him. ‘How much do you want to bet? What if you don't make it to the Final at all?’

Yuri glances pointedly down at his silver and back up at Otabek. ‘If I fuck up in Moscow as badly as I did in Shanghai, I’ll still make it. Look at Yuuri last year. But don't you fucking jinx it, asshole. And don't you fuck up either.’

Otabek smirks and bumps his shoulder. ‘You have no faith in me.’

* * *

Everything is as it should be. Yuri’s never felt content about getting silver in his life, but he reasons that if he beats Viktor in Moscow, it won’t be so much of a blow. Mila slings her arm around his neck, the glass of her medal glinting on her chest and the skirt of her costume glittering under her jacket as they stumble back into the hotel lobby, giggling from the high of the win. Then she spots Sara and her silver and lets go of Yuri, laughing and offering a hand for a high-five while Sara’s brother glowers. Yuri’s happy for her. He’s happy for Otabek, who walks at his other side without a smile but with the aura of a man who feels he’s done his duty. Yakov is satisfied and Lilia Alexandrovna calculating, and overall, it’s not been so bad.

Yuri’s coaches stop to talk to the Crispinos', Lilia with her chin lifted regally and Yakov looking ready for bed. It leaves Yuri and Otabek alone, halfway to the elevator and halfway to the door. A perfect medium. Otabek’s eyes flicker to the door from which they came and Yuri tilts his head a little in a silent question he knows Otabek will understand. There’s a big dinner after this that Yuri doesn’t really want to endure, not when he knows how many people are going to want to congratulate him and Otabek. Otabek doesn’t have his bike this time, but Yuri’s willing to bet that there’s somewhere nearby where they can hide from everyone else.

‘Yurotchka! Yurotchka, please take a photo with us!’ he hears from behind him, and he stiffens for a moment before relaxing. Fine. He has a medal and it’s been a fairly decent day so far. The least he can do is offer his fans a picture.

‘Yeah, alright, hurry up,’ he concedes, looping his fingers into the cuff of Otabek’s jacket and dragging him towards the three girls with their cat ears and their phones. He throws an arm around Otabek’s shoulder and lets the girls crowd around them for their selfies, offering them no more than his do-I-have-to face until one of them turns watery eyes on him and he smiles sharply for the picture. It looks a little frightening when she shows it to him, especially with Otabek’s stoney face next to his, but you know what? Good. Maybe it’ll scare Yuuri and Viktor off the podium.

Yuri fans the overeager magpies away and they trip over themselves to get out of his way, running into other patrons and apologising all in the same cacophony of voices. One of them knocks over a woman in a fur-trimmed coat and high heels and the two go down with twin squeaks. Yuri snorts derisively, but goes to help his fan as Otabek dips forward to offer the other woman a hand up.

‘Watch where you’re going,’ Yuri grumbles at the girl. ‘You’ll get hurt not paying attention like that.’ The girl immediately stammers her thanks and apology in the same breath, a blush high on her cheeks as she scurries away.  

He spots the other woman pull her hand away from Otabek the moment she’s upright. The way she brushes her hand over her coat looks more like she’s wiping germs off than smoothing the folds of her clothes and Yuri immediately wants to yell at her, because what the hell?

And he’s about to do it, too, gearing up for what’s going to be a hellish bitchfest over how fucking rude that is until she looks up, a derisive sneer already spreading on her lips, and stops short when she sees him.

‘Yurotchka?’

The fiery words suddenly turn to ash in Yuri’s throat.

‘Yura…’ she persists, her face suddenly fearful and hopeful at the same time. ‘Yurotchka, it’s me, don’t you remember?’

Her English is near-perfect.

He stares at her, standing there and clutching her scarf in her hands in the way that old Hollywood stars do when they want to look particularly distressed. Pink lips, soft blonde curls, big blue eyes… she looks almost childish. Innocent. Like she could have been one of the young women trailing after Viktor and hoping he would look her way before he met Yuuri. And she must think herself innocent if she’s standing _right fucking there_ and daring to look him in the eye like this is a good thing. Like he _wants_ to see her.

‘Of course I remember–’ he starts distantly, his voice cracking and falling away from him. It belongs to someone else, a different life and a different place, because he is Yuri Plisetsky, Grand Prix Champion, Ice Tiger of Russia, fierce and badass and ready to rip throats out with his teeth and his claws, not the quivering child facing his mother like she’s Baba Yaga incarnate.

‘Yura.’ Otabek says lowly. Yuri can feel the tension running off of him in waves. He must recognise her, too. It’s a tiny little comfort that does nothing to stop Yuri from shaking with fury and hurt, anger brighter and hotter than it’s ever been in his life.

Yuri feels frozen, scrutinised by x-rays until she creeps closer, her heels clicking against the wooden floorboards and her fingers coming up to her mouth. Red, he thinks numbly, his eyes on her fingernails. Red, red, red.

Automatically, he brings his hand up and clutches at the glass disc hanging from his neck, feeling hunted. Like she’ll judge him if she sees the silver engraving on its surface. Like it _fucking matters_ what she thinks.

‘I was looking for you,’ she says, but doesn’t take another step forward. ‘I heard you were here in Milwaukee.’ She swallows.  ‘Yurotchka, I wanted to congratulate—’

‘No,’ he snaps in harsh Russian. She falls silent. ‘No, no, you don’t get to congratulate me for shit. What else do you want to say? That you’re proud of me? That you’re so glad your pretty little son grew the fuck up and found the top of the world without you?’

‘Yuri Plisetsky!’ Lilia Alexandrovna scolds from across the lobby, her picky ears catching on his profanity, and his mother gasps, stepping forward with a hand outreached. He bats her hand away and jerks backwards into Otabek’s chest, his breath coming in short, furious bursts.

‘Don’t touch me, hag,’ he hisses and his voice is all shaky and inching ever-closer to hysterical, fuck, fuck, fuck. The way she looks at him, wounded but calculating, skimming over him and appraising him like a statue, a piece of art, a fucking china doll— ‘You don’t have the _fucking_ right.’

She withdraws and frowns at him. ‘Always such a difficult child. So quick to anger. So rude and selfish.’

And even though it stings like a bitch, she’s not _wrong_. He feels the flinch rip through his entire body from head to toe. ‘You fucking _hypocrite–’_

‘What is going on over here?’ Lilia thunders, breaking away from Yakov and the Italian coaches, all severity and poise and terrifying regalness that the woman reaching for Yuri could only hope to achieve. Otabek takes advantage of the opportunity of the brief distraction to wrap a steel-trap hand around Yuri’s shaking wrist and pull him away.

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘We should go before my coach notices we’re not joining the others for dinner.’

Yuri goes without a fight, feeling completely off-balance and separated from his body.

‘Lilia Alexandrovna, I’m sorry, I can’t—’ Yuri tries to explain at her disapproving look. He knows she sees the expression on his face and it stops her from scolding him further or demanding he return for dinner with, he doesn’t fucking know, other skaters and coaches and sponsors and shit and he really can’t deal with that right now, not when that woman looks like she might try to follow him and leech off of his victory for a chance at tasting a little more limelight. He’s pretty enough for it and he’s famous. Why didn’t he think this would happen some day? Otabek pulls him close to his side when the elevator arrives and the last thing Yuri sees from his mother is the stomach-twisting face of disappointment.

* * *

He lasts until his own room, fumbling with his key card until the door finally opens and he can stumble inside and drop his medal on the table with a clatter. He rips off the coat threatening to strangle him, revealing purple velvet fit for the prince that he is not and no, no, no, she’s right. She’s right. He is selfish. Selfish and vulgar and bitchy and probably the biggest fucking brat to walk the planet. He wants to die a little bit, curl up on the mattress and let it swallow him whole because Jesus fucking Christ, did people see him do that? Did they hear him?

‘Yura,’ Otabek says from the doorway, and all the panic and fury and hysteria building up inside of Yuri like a time bomb reminds him quite sharply that, oh fucking yeah, not only did he just wreck what was supposed to be a celebration for Otabek’s victory, but that he’s a fucking awful friend, too. Memories of the club flash in front of his eyes and the guilt he’s been so successfully ignoring rushes back in like a typhoon, ripping him up on the inside into bloody shreds. So many fucking secrets. So selfish. So disappointing.

‘Get out,’ he says ( _wails_ ). ‘Get out, get out, I can’t, don’t talk to me, don’t look at me, please, Beka—’

Otabek catches his flailing hands and tugs him close, and even though Yuri’s too fucking tall now to lean forward and bury his face in Otabek’s chest and scream, it’s cathartic and horrible all the same.

‘Yura, Yura, she’s lying,’ Otabek says vehemently. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about _._ Listen to me, _soldat,_ this is nothing. She means nothing. Breathe.’ ( _Walk it off. Walk it off. You are strong. I believe in you._ )

Yuri feels miserable. This is too much. He knew the string would snap somewhere, dropping all of his tightly-wrapped feelings and gifts and letting them shatter in pieces at his feet. But this doesn’t feel like a small thing. This feels like someone swung an axe through it, or hit the contents with a spiked mace, or maybe just set the whole goddamned thing on fire.

Secrets burn like tissue paper and fairy wings. He has to say it.

‘You don’t want to look at me,’ Yuri says with a gasp. ‘She’s not wrong. She’s a bitch and she’s selfish and rude and heartless and I’m just like her, don’t you see?’

‘No,’ Otabek insists. ‘No, not at all.’

Yuri pulls away from him, his laughter half-hysterical and half-derisive. ‘You don’t fucking understand! Beka, I’m a piece of shit, I’m disgusting. Look at what I did to you!’

Otabek’s expression frightens him, all wide eyes and pain and horror and concern. Concern for _him._ Concern he’s never, ever deserved. Yuri doesn’t think he’s ever seen Otabek so expressive, not even with all of their ( _his_ ) friends in Almaty, and it threatens to split the ground under his feet and suck him in to drown him in the magma.

‘Hah!’ Yuri says, his voice strangled. ‘You think so highly of me! I don’t understand, I just–’ he takes a gasping breath and it all spills out of him on the exhale. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I lied. I’ve been lying. That night at the club, shit happened. I was drunk and stupid and I kissed you and it was fucking great and I’ve wanted to do it again for months but I can't—’ Yuri cuts himself off and looks away, his chest heaving with the strain of the fear constricting his lungs.

‘I know,’ Otabek says quietly. Yuri freezes. ‘I lied, too. I wasn't nearly drunk enough to forget that.’

‘You—’ He whips back around with an embarrassing noise bubbling in his throat, his face wet with tears. ‘You fucking knew and you didn't say anything?’

Otabek is silent. ‘I was scared,’ he admits after a moment. ‘I worried you wouldn’t want to be my friend if you knew.’

‘Why?’ Yuri asks incredulously, eyes wide and the world falling away under his feet. ‘I was the one who assaulted you! I didn't ask!’

‘I didn’t stop you,’ Otabek points out.

‘Jesus fuck, Beka, really? It’s still my fault. I’m the one who did it. You were surprised, wasted, whatever-’

‘I’m not saying it was rational!’ Yuri’s never heard him raise his voice before. Otabek swallows thickly, wringing his hands. ‘Or the right thing to do. I’m sorry. I should have told you.’

‘It’s not your fucking fault!’ Yuri cries. ‘Well, yeah, it kind of is, because you’re so nice to me even though I’m a fucking asshole and you send me presents and fucking plane tickets in the mail when I’m sad and I can spend hours talking to you when I can barely speak to anyone else without screaming because you make it so fucking easy because you only ever say what you mean and you understand me! And you’re really fucking hot, too, you know, with your stupid bike and your stupid DJing and I really fucking like you, okay?’

Otabek stares at him and Yuri chokes on nothing, because shit. Shit. God fucking dammit.

‘Yes, okay? I like you. A fucking lot. Way past liking. I’m kind of in love with you, asshole, don't you get it?’ Yuri buries his face in his hands. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t have the fucking reminder on my arm to hold me back. I tried to take something that doesn’t belong to me but I can’t let it go, okay?’

Otabek is quiet. Too quiet. His eyes are big and his expression unreadable and Yuri’s world is collapsing around him and it’s his fucking fault again, hah? Hah?!?

‘Jesus, would you just say something? Please?’ Yuri begs. ‘It doesn’t matter what, I can fucking take—’

And then there are hands bracketing his face and Beka’s dark eyes a little more moist than they should ever have to be and then Beka’s kissing him and everything else, all that fury and confusion and self-hatred, just sort of… quiets.

Otabek is soft. Gentle. Shaking under Yuri’s confused hands like he doesn’t quite know what he’s doing and honestly, _what the fuck._ But the part of Yuri’s brain that isn’t malfunctioning to all hell is so very tiny that he can barely hear it because oh. Oh. It’s so much better when he’s sober. He can register now that Otabek’s lips are actually kinda soft and his hands sliding back into Yuri’s hair feel really nice. Or that Otabek has a little bit of stubble and the scratch of it against Yuri’s skin makes him feel like he’s going to combust.

Otabek pulls back slowly, looking just about as surprised as Yuri feels, which is stupid because he’s the one who did it. That fact seems to register when the cloudiness clears from his eyes and he clears his throat. His hand burns on Yuri’s arm, but Yuri doesn’t ever want him to let go.

‘There,’ Otabek says, his voice rough. ‘Now we’re even.’

Yuri’s clarity hits him like a club to the head and he nearly staggers with it. Desperately, because someone has to have some sort of sense in this situation, he fumbles for Otabek’s arm and holds it up, shoving his sleeve down and baring his soulmark. It’s a swirling mess of chaotic, clashing shades winding in the watercolour pattern that haunts Yuri’s dreams.

‘What about this, huh?’ he asks weakly. ‘You’re not serious about me. You can’t be, not when you have a Roxane or a Nura or a Katsudon out there for you.’

Something in Otabek’s face shifts at that. He goes utterly blank for a moment, familiar stoic mask firmly where it rests; Yuri, simultaneously satisfied and dejected, lets go of his wrist.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says uselessly. ‘This is entirely my—’

‘Yura,’ Otabek says.

‘—fault and all I’ve done is confused you for my own selfish thoughts—’

‘Yura,’ Otabek repeats.

‘—just like Viktor and I fucking swore I’d never fall into that trap—’

 _‘Yuri,’_ Otabek says, something odd and thick in his voice like syrup.

Yuri falls silent. Otabek steps in front of him. Yuri can see him trembling, still, and wow. That’s frightening. Otabek looks _terrified_ and that’s not fucking okay.

‘Look,’ Otabek says insistently, his eyes wide. ‘Look at me and answer me honestly. How do you feel right now?’

Yuri swallows and thinks it through. ‘Kinda fucking pissed? Confused. Bitter. Like I want to hurl myself into the sun. Why?’

Otabek holds out his wrist. Yuri squints at the colours and scowls through the tears.

‘Yeah? So what?’

Otabek runs a finger over a streak of red. ‘Anger,’ he says. His voice is suddenly very calm. Yuri watches his finger shift to the bright aqua mixing uncertainly with the red. ‘Confusion.’ Then to the dark green, like dried kale. ‘Bitterness.’ Spikes of black. ‘Self-hatred.’ His voice cracks on that one.

Yuri stares at the clash of colours. He knows that’s what they mean. He doesn’t want it to click in his head, but it does anyways, and he laughs harshly in short little bursts. ‘Hah. That doesn’t mean… You can’t possibly know, there’s billions of people in the world, you can’t– Don’t tease me.’

Otabek shakes his head and takes Yuri’s hand, pulling the snaps apart and tugging the leather out of the way of the knotted scar. He runs his thumb over the tissue. Yuri shivers and watches the colours shift on Otabek’s arm, but his concentration goes out the window as Otabek pulls Yuri’s bare wrist close and presses his lips softly against the edge of the scar.

Yuri whimpers at the sensation of dull pressure where the white ridges rest, the fire of Otabek’s kiss where Yuri can feel it just fine on undamaged skin. The feeling sucks all of the animosity out of him, all of the protests and denials and deprecation right from the surface of his skin.

Otabek’s dark eyes flicker to his, wide and soft. Yuri wants to drown in them. Slowly, deliberately, Otabek turns his forearm so Yuri can see, clearly, his own surprise, indignation, and helpless want painted across Otabek’s arm in three shades of the same colour, the colour he knows would always define him on his impossible soulmate’s mark: Red.

It hits Yuri like a train. His heart sputters in his chest.

Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck._

‘Beka–’ Yuri says, and fucking hell does he hate the way his voice sounds, all high-pitched and broken. That’s all it takes, huh? He’s spent a year being a blind idiot, pining like a bitch and trying to hide it by throwing everything into his skating, but one kiss on the wrist and Yuri is _gone._

Otabek exhales shakily against his skin and lets go. ‘I knew it,’ he says quietly, like if he speaks any louder, he’ll shatter the moment. ‘Yura. I knew it.’ His voice is barely a whisper now. ‘How did you not understand what I was asking, all those times? How could you not know?’

Yuri sobs and curls his arm around Otabek’s neck, burying his face in the join of his neck and shoulder and breathing in the scent of him. This is a dream, right? A clusterfuck of a dream, but a dream nonetheless. There’s no way this is real. There’s no way that just happened. No. Not at all. He doesn’t deserve that. Never.

‘How could _you_ have possibly known before?’ Yuri demands wetly. ‘How?’

Otabek laughs. And laughs. And shakes with it, with all this emotion Yuri never sees, and holds Yuri close to him like he’s never ever going to let go.

‘Idiot,’ Otabek says. ‘It couldn’t have been anyone else.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take a deep breath. That one was a rollercoaster for everyone involved: You, me, Yuri, Beka. The next update will be a week from the posting of this chapter instead of on Wednesday, so take some time to digest for next Sunday. I'll be back with a bit of exactly what you want by then :) ~Hannah
> 
> [Baba Yaga](http://www.oldrussia.net/baba.html): A fearsome, horror-story-inducing witch from Slavic folklore. 
> 
> Otabek's free program: [Across the Stars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nk_WHHTQtY)
> 
> A masterpost of programs skated by notable characters (plus some extras) in the NPM'verse: [Here!](http://russianfeya.tumblr.com/post/159645861812/npm-the-programs)
> 
> Yuri's SP and FP costumes are very loosely inspired by, respectively, [Yuzuru Hanyu's 2011-2012 SP costume](https://68.media.tumblr.com/a1eb09516fa3b85f47f5ffe44f415c72/tumblr_nk41y5KY7x1tbuttdo2_r4_500.jpg) and [Nathan Chen's 2016-17 FP costume](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q68VAN29Tk8/WOHI_C2l2LI/AAAAAAABg4o/-iN0lVQnQeY6rc_-zd_tLmY5HW3LCxFXwCLcB/s640/Nathan_Chen_FS.jpg%20).


	16. Platinum Grey

It’s not a dream.

It’s not a dream because his face is raw from crying and he still has the damned scar and his heart almost hurts pounding against his ribs, desperate to escape.

But it feels like a dream.

It feels like a dream because they've been laying here on his hotel bed, staring eye to eye and basking in it like two snakes in the sun. Otabek’s fingers are warm over Yuri’s scar. His soulmark thrums with life under Yuri’s touch. Time for dinner has long since come and gone but Yuri can't think of eating right now. He can't think of anything, really, besides the fact that Otabek’s eyes aren't flat; they’re layers and layers of all different shades of brown. And his eyelashes are really long. And he must have been wearing that gold eyeliner that drives Yuri mad for his free program because there are flecks of it clinging to his lash lines.

His free program. The one that he choreographed for and dedicated to Yuri.

Fuck.

Yuri thinks back on it while Otabek drags his fingers up towards Yuri’s wrist, drawing invisible patterns into his skin. There was the free program, the long nights over Skype or on the phone, Almaty, Worlds. The bear. Kadyr’s discussion. Tea in Barcelona, both times.

He swallows.

‘Are you in love with me, Beka?’ he asks quietly.

Otabek’s fingers pause in their aimless doodling. ‘I’ve been in love with you for a long time.’

‘How long?’ Yuri demands. ‘Tell me.’ The tips of Otabek’s ears go red and he turns his face into his pillow. It does nothing to hide the blush high on his cheekbones. Yuri grins. ‘Please?’

‘You’ll laugh,’ Otabek says, muffled. ‘It’s stupid.’

‘And now you have to tell me. Come on. Don't make me beg.’

Otabek gives him a look that immediately twists into desire low in Yuri’s abdomen before Otabek sighs. ‘I was thirteen.’

Yuri blinks. ‘You what?’

‘I was thirteen and I was head over heels for the boy who could dance everyone else out of the studio,’ Otabek admits. ‘But I didn't know I was in love with you until Barcelona. Even then, I was… hesitant to admit it to myself.’

Yuri opens his mouth and closes it again. Wordlessly and at the same time, they look down at Otabek’s mark and the swirls of red and pink under Yuri’s fingers. They shift as Yuri watches, a pearly-white curiously sliding between the shades.

‘It’s fascination,’ Otabek says after a moment of staring at it. The scarlet grows a little. ‘You aren't angry, are you?’

Yuri blinks at it. ‘For once, no. I swear.’

Otabek smiles.

Yuri suddenly gets it, why Viktor was constantly all over Yuuri in Hasetsu. Yuri never wants to let go of Otabek’s arm, never wants to get up and pull away from him, especially when he realises that the injustice of all of this is that they have to go home. There’s a goal outside of these walls, a duty both of them have to their countries and to themselves that they have spent most of their lives working to achieve.

…wait.

He sits up and his hand slides from Otabek’s, feeling jarringly hollow for a moment. Otabek lifts his head to watch Yuri lunge for his backpack, ripping out papers and sweaters and all of the other junk he keeps in that stupid thing until his fingers close around the envelope and he holds it up in triumph. He dives back onto the mattress on his stomach, jabbing it at Otabek’s chest. ‘Here. Happy birthday.’

‘Yura,’ Otabek says, exasperated. He takes it from Yuri and quirks a little smile at the cat sticker. ‘Do you want me to wait?’

Yuri sputters. ‘Do I want you to—No, Beka, why the fuck would I give it to you now if I wanted you to wait? Open it. Now.’

Otabek shakes his head slightly before he opens the envelope, all jagged edges and no finesse at all. ‘You really didn’t have to… Oh.’

Yuri bounces a little, searching Otabek’s face for his reaction, but all Otabek does is stare at the plane tickets. There’s the little crease between his brows that makes Yuri want to rub it out with his thumb and so he does, because fuck it, he can now, can't he? Otabek’s eyes follow his thumb and go cross-eyed to do it, and he looks so funny that Yuri starts giggling like a little girl and finally, finally, Otabek smiles.

‘This is too much,’ he says, but it’s not much protest. ‘Yura, you shouldn't have spent this much–’

‘Shut up, I wouldn't have done it if I couldn’t afford it.’ Yuri thinks on that. ‘Okay, maybe I would have. But only because I hate not being even with people.’

Otabek looks back down at the tickets. ‘You got this and you didn't know?’

Yuri groans. ‘Yeah, I know, I’m an idiot, shut up. Don't say anything else and just accept it and come visit me in January. We can walk around and I’ll introduce you to _Dedulya_ and then we can gloat about how good we are at the rink and… you know. Not do the Skype thing.’

Yuri hears him laugh, a quiet little snorting laugh that makes it sound like he’s either trying to stifle it or he’s choking. Yuri peeks out between his fingers and watches him shake with it. Otabek pulls him closer when he calms down and they just sit like that, their foreheads pressed together, breathing in sync. Yuri closes his eyes and curls his fingers against the bristly hairs of Otabek’s undercut, reveling in the ability to touch and be touched.

‘Not do the Skype thing,’ Otabek repeats. ‘I’d like that.’

Yuri breathes. Breathes and drowns and drowns in it all.

‘Yura,’ Otabek whispers, like it’s just as much of an impossibility for him as Yuri thinks, too. ‘Yura, I’ve waited for you for so long.’

‘Beka,’ Yura whispers back, his voice wavering, ‘you’re _mine.’_

* * *

Otabek slips out eventually and Yuri is alone, unmoored and unable to let go of his what-the-fuck state of mind, because _really,_ what the fuck? It’s like someone slid a scalpel between him and reality, separating them by a near-invisible slit that leaves him both here and not here at all. He sinks down next to the table, the fabric of his trousers catching the light where the sequins along the hems slide against the floor.

‘Holy shit,’ he says out loud, staring at the door. And then everything comes rushing back: Where he is, why there’s a glass medal on the table, why his eyes feel puffy and raw. He catches sight of his bracelet on the floor and crawls for it, closing his fingers around it and feeling the leather creak against his fingers. He settles back against the desk’s leg and turns it in his hands, running his fingers over the studs before he closes his eyes.

He’s sixteen and a half and he feels like he’s lived twice, three, four times as long. He wonders if Otabek feels like that, sometimes. If every skater in the world has felt like that. Today has simultaneously gone by in the blink of an eye and lasted years. Tomorrow seems like an impossibility, a theoretical outcome, because tomorrow he has to face his coaches about what happened in the lobby and all of the people he was probably supposed to have met earlier and go back to being Yuri Plisetsky, prodigy champion, Ice Tiger of Russia. But he doesn't feel like that Yuri. That Yuri has seen victories and failures, given blood, sweat, and tears for his craft, and skated shackled to the ground by the scars on his arm. Therefore, tomorrow won't come, and instead he’ll spend all of eternity holed up in this room, hiding from his past and waiting eternally for Otabek to come back.

He strips off his jacket and his costume and just manages to find the motivation to hang them up instead of leaving them in a heap on the floor. With a tug, he drags a baggy t-shirt over his head right as the door opens again and he whirls, startled. In answer, Otabek holds up the room key as the heavy door clicks shut behind him.

‘Thank fuck,’ are the first and really fucking eloquent words that make it from Yuri’s brain to his mouth. ‘What are we going to do? I don't want– I want you to be–’ Shit, there’s no way to say that without it sounding stupid and selfish.

( _I want you to be mine and I want people to know. But I want you to be mine and mine alone. I can't share this, not when I have to share everything else and I’ve just gotten you, but how the hell do I go back to what I was a couple hours ago?_ )

Otabek looks at him for a long moment before he disappears into the bathroom and comes back with Yuri’s hairbrush. Yuri is very suddenly thrown back to Almaty and another selfish, shameless request.

‘You’ll feel better if you take the pins out,’ Otabek says quietly. ‘Sit in the chair and I’ll do it for you.’

Yuri obeys, kicking the chair over to the bed and spinning it so he can sit with his back to the mattress. He plops into it and Otabek tugs it a little closer before he removes the bobby pins, dropping them on the nightstand with little clinks. He unwinds the complicated dutch-braid ponytail (apparently. That’s what Mila called it) at Yuri’s neck and gently shakes his fingers through the hairspray-stiff braid until it’s been broken up into waves along the left side of his head.

‘You never cut your hair,’ Otabek observes.

Yuri shrugs. ‘You said you liked it.’

Yuri feels the tension leak out of him as Otabek works the brush through his hair, dragging it against Yuri’s scalp until he feels the urge to melt into a puddle. Otabek’s right; he’s calmer now with his hair brushing between his shoulderblades, putting a barrier between his neck and the air.

And it’s not like Otabek’s fingers in his hair turn his knees to jelly or anything. Or that, when Yuri spins around to face him, the soft look in his eyes, the one that makes him look like a teenager instead of a hero, makes Yuri’s whole body feel warm.

‘Stay,’ Yuri says. It’s not a request.

Otabek breathes once, twice, three times. Then he reaches over to turn off the lamp.

* * *

Yuri keeps his eyes closed but doesn’t sleep. Not really. There’s too much to think about, but not enough to freak out over, not with Otabek radiating heat like Yuri’s personal space heater. How the hell is he supposed to sleep? He resists the urge to reach out and touch Otabek to see if he’s really there, because duh, obviously he is. Yuri’s just being stupid.

But it doesn’t quite make sense. Nothing makes sense. That was supposed to be his tragic backstory for the rest of his life. Alone and free, as Kadyr might put it. And yeah he’s never going to know for sure, but all the evidence points to _Yes, he's yours. Probably._

Or this is all a coincidence and a horrible misunderstanding and Yuri’s going to wake up in the morning and Beka will be gone, realising that no way in hell is the trainwreck that is Yuri Plisetsky his mate. How would they ever know? And how simple would it be for Beka to let him go anyways, because it’s so easy when things don’t line up? Marks. Colours. Personalities. Experiences. Languages—

Yuri sits up like someone shocked him and nearly elbows Otabek in the face.

‘Beka.’

Otabek groans, squinting up at him in the dark. ‘Yura, it’s three in the morning.’

Yuri drops two hands on Otabek’s shoulders and Otabek’s eyes fly open in surprise at the force behind the motion.

‘Beka,’ Yuri repeats insistently, feeling panic threat through him like ice. ‘Beka, I can't speak Kazakh.’

Otabek blinks at him. ‘I wouldn't expect you to be able to. Unless you’re trying to learn?’

‘No, you don't understand,’ Yuri says, his voice going up in pitch. ‘Mila said it’s a mate thing. That’s why Yuuri can speak Russian almost fluently even though he’s only been in Russia for less than a year and why he and Viktor gossip in Japanese even though Viktor’s first visit to Hasetsu was two years ago and Japanese is super fucking hard, okay? Like it’s a thing to be able to learn your mate’s native language really easily but I don't know what the fuck you’re saying when you talk to Kadyr and Amina in Kazakh so are we not–’

‘Yura,’ Otabek interrupts, putting a hand over Yuri’s on his shoulder and quite effectively shutting Yuri up. ‘My first language is Russian.’

Yuri blinks and the panic dissipates like smoke. ‘Oh. Well how the fuck was I supposed to know that?’

Otabek offers an aborted attempt at a shrug. ‘You never asked.’

Yuri collapses back onto the sheets. ‘This isn’t real.’

Otabek quirks a little smile. ‘No,’ he says. ‘This is all a dream.’

‘Fuck you,’ Yuri says, and hits him lightly with the back of his hand. ‘I don’t know shit about this, okay? Everything’s new. It’s not like I ever thought-’ He cuts off and swallows. ‘You know.’

Otabek catches Yuri’s hand before he can tug it away and Yuri slides closer. Hesitantly. Testing the waters.

‘I know,’ Otabek says. He hesitates for a moment, visibly unsure until he cautiously lifts his hand and Yuri takes the opening, sliding back into his arms. The warm weight of Otabek’s arm over his torso is more calming than anything Beka could possibly say and Yuri accepts it greedily.

What? Yeah, maybe he’s a little touch-starved. Maybe he’s been dreaming about this for years and maybe it’s all a little overwhelming.

‘This can't be real,’ Yuri repeats, and Otabek pulls him closer—closer!—and presses his nose into Yuri’s hair.

‘Sleep,’ Otabek instructs, and Yuri does. He sleeps like a baby and doesn't dream about a goddamned thing.

* * *

Otabek’s actually a fucking furnace but Yuri doesn’t mind waking up a little too warm, not when the morning just seems so… quiet. Calm. Like every sound but Otabek’s steady breaths and Yuri’s own has been sucked out of the room through a vacuum hose. Like time has frozen in a bubble around them and Yuri can just stay like this forever.

‘My coach is expecting me,’ Otabek murmurs sleepily against his hair, and the bubble disappears, the weight of the world dropping down all in one go again. ‘If I’m not back in my room and he comes looking-’

‘Yeah.’ Yuri closes his eyes again. ‘Yeah, I know.’

Otabek’s movements are reluctant and slow, dragging his fingers over Yuri’s skin as he pulls away. Yuri shivers and rolls to watch Otabek tug at his t-shirt to make it look a little less like he just rolled out of bed, frowning at his messy hair in the mirror and trying to comb it through with his fingers. Yuri watches him for a moment, a stream of childish delight zipping through him when he realises that Otabek’s hair fresh out of bed is a little wavier than it usually is. It’s a mess, of course, so Yuri picks up the hairbrush from the nightstand, pulls a handful of blonde hair out of it (ew, gross, he sheds like a dog) and he chucks it at Otabek’s head. Otabek dodges it, looking back at Yuri with the greatest what-the-fuck-was-that-for face Yuri thinks he’s ever seen. Yuri snorts.

‘Thanks,’ Otabek says wryly, and ducks to pick it up. He drags it through his hair before raking it back from his face with his fingers, but without any product, the front falls back to his forehead. It’s a little longer now, Yuri notes. It dangles past his brows. And it’s kinda hot.

(It’s really fucking hot, actually.)

‘What?’ Otabek asks, glancing back into the mirror.

‘It’s going to look like you’re sneaking back to your room in shame,’ Yuri points out, lying by omission. ‘What’re people going to say about the Hero of Kazakhstan then, huh?’

Otabek shrugs. ‘I know the truth. There’s no shame in this. Or you.’

Yuri feels his cheeks heat up. ‘You fucking sap.’

Otabek’s mouth twitches up in a smile.

Yuri rolls to his feet and ducks into the bathroom to brush his teeth. When he comes back out, Otabek looks relatively well put-together for someone who slept in those clothes, but really, it’s hard to look either way in sweatpants and a t-shirt.

‘Text me when you’re free,’ Otabek says, making his way to the door. ‘We can find lunch in the city. Some of my friends from when I used to train in the US lived here. They could recommend somewhere good.’

 _‘Text_ you?’ Yuri asks skeptically.

Otabek shrugs as he tugs on his boots. ‘Just for you, Yura.’

‘Otabek,' Yuri says. Otabek turns back to look, to listen, but Yuri suddenly finds he has nothing to say. Instead, he reaches forward and tugs Otabek closer and-

It’s calmer, this time. Slower. But that doesn't stop Yuri from drowning in it, soaking up Otabek’s affection like a sponge and sinking down into the sea. Terrifying, how easy and difficult this is all at the same time. It is only slightly reassuring that Otabek seems as new to this as he is, that he waited, because one drunken kiss when Yuri was fourteen did not teach him how to do this confidently but Otabek’s movements are just as hesitant as his. But it’s good like this right now, better than the heated and messy kisses of his fantasies. Otabek kisses with the earnest sincerity and honesty he puts into his programs and his words.

Yuri pulls back for air. They breathe, their foreheads pressed together and Otabek fingers threaded into Yuri’s hair.

‘Are you okay?’ Otabek asks. Not _How are you feeling?_ He has the answer to that painted on his arm.

‘Yes. No. Maybe.’ Yuri sighs. ‘I will be. That’s good enough.’

‘Good.’ Firmly but gently, Otabek pulls Yuri’s hands away and steps backwards.

Yuri knows why. Already, logic is carving through the heady cloud of Otabek’s distractions, his hand on the door a reminder again that there is a world outside, that there are competitions to win and rivals to crush under his heels.

_Skating is not your life._

(But it is, Viktor. It’s everything.)

The door clicks shut behind Otabek.

(And so is this.)

* * *

Mila ambushes him at breakfast in a whirlwind of red hair and too much caffeine.

‘Hey, Yura, Coach Yakov told me something happened when we came back last night and I wanted to see if you were- Are you smiling?’

‘No,’ Yuri says, and schools his smile into a scowl.

‘You totally were!’ Mila accuses, swinging an arm over his shoulder to steal a piece of bacon off his plate. ‘Tell me. Go on.’

Yuri glowers at his plate. ‘I had a weird night. I ran into my _mama_.’

Mila’s expression immediately flips to something terrifying. Yuri’s seen that look before, right before she left the rink to fuck up the douchebag hockey player. He shoves at her and speaks quickly. ‘I'm fine, _Baba_ , god. I don't want to see that bitch ever again but I’m okay. Beka and I… talked. After.’

‘Ohhhh,’ Mila says ominously, and Yuri swipes at her. She dodges it smoothly. ‘No, no, this is payback for years of you complaining and making fun of my boyfriends.’

‘I was right, wasn't I?’ Yuri grumbles, picking at the fruit on his plate. He knows his ears are bright, borscht-fucking-red because it feels like they’re on fire but his hair’s down. He hopes she can't see. ‘They were all worthless shits, anyways.’

‘True,’ she agrees amiably, plopping down beside him. ‘And Otabek?’

‘No,’ Yuri says defensively, his hackles rising at the suggestion. ‘He’s absolutely not. We’re not- no.’ Under the table, he curls his fingers around his arm, the uneven ridges numb under his touch. ‘Have some fucking class, Mila, and fuck off.’

‘Feisty today, aren't we?’ she says dryly. Then she sobers a little. ‘I’m sorry about your _mama,_ Yura.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ Yuri answers. He glances at her. ‘Congratulations on your gold.’

‘Thanks!’ She beams and ruffles his hair. He endures it, for once. ‘Congrats on your silver. I know it’s not what you wanted-’

‘I deserved it,’ Yuri interrupts. ‘And Beka deserved gold.’ Then, quietly, he admits, ‘But it’s fine. I got exactly what I wanted, anyways. And it’s a billion times better than a stupid gold here.’

Mila smiles at him. ‘Tell me about it?’

He looks across the dining hall to where Lilia Alexandrovna and Yakov are sitting, eating in comfortable silence. Lilia gives him an expectant look that demands he explain his behaviour from last night and he scowls.

‘Later, maybe,’ he acquiesces. ‘No promises.’

* * *

_Y: Alright, let's get the fuck out of here_

_B: Do you have a leather jacket?_

_Y: Yeah, why_

_B: Put it on and come outside._

Yuri finds it and throws it on, thanking his past self for being stylish and wanting to look like Beka after Almaty. He sprints for the stairs and skips the elevator altogether to save time. Hastily, he ties his hair back in a messy ponytail as he pushes outside to the rumbling of a motorcycle’s engine. Otabek tosses him a helmet and Yuri shoves his hair underneath it, swinging his leg over the back of the bike. He shamelessly clings to Otabek’s torso as they speed off towards the city.

He’d forgotten how much more comfortable silence is with Otabek than with normal people. That there’s a reason communication between them doesn't necessarily have to be verbal. He wonders if Otabek knows how much trust Yuri places in him to do this. He wonders if this happens to all soulmates or if this is just a Yura-and-Beka thing, where Yuri never knows how to say what he means and so he can just say nothing at all and be understood. He wonders if Otabek takes him out on these long drives because he knows that the wind stinging against Yuri’s cheeks and blowing at his loose strands calms the storm raging inside of him.

Tomorrow he flies back to St. Petersburg. He will practice his arm lifts until he collapses from exhaustion like a week of practice will actually help him at all. Then he’ll crush Viktor at the Rostelecom Cup with a smile on his face, memories of this at the forefront of his mind and Barcelona written in his future.

But for now, he’ll just hold on tight and let Otabek whisk him away.


	17. Crimson

Fucking quad loop.

Fucking Viktor Nikiforov.

Fuck.

Yuri tries. He really does. But there’s something about the way Viktor skates in front of a crowd rather than their familiar little rink, something desperate and heart-wrenching in a way that Yuri thinks has to be because Viktor has designed this season to be his last. It’s his farewell to competitive skating, the love of his life. How is Yuri supposed to compete with that?

But he would have been damn close if he hadn’t fucked up his quad loop again.

He sulks about it for all of five minutes after Viktor’s scores are announced for gold because in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Yuri has his spot in the Grand Prix Final with his points, and that’s the one that matters in the end, doesn’t it?

_B: Congratulations._

Yuri scrapes up his dignity into something presentable and smiles anyways, knowing that Otabek will see his determination painted on the inside of his arm no matter how far away he is. It’s both terrifying and comforting.

It’s hard being away from him.

It’s not impossible or anything. It’s not like Yuri’s cried about it or has drawn into himself from the separation as he’d feared he would. Logically, that would make sense: Yuri’s been away from Otabek for months before. Knowing the truth doesn’t make it any different.

Yuri watches Yuuri embrace Viktor in a congratulatory hug, the two of them laughing and, god, Yuri thinks Yuuri might be crying. So what? It’s just the Rostelecom Cup. It’s not like winning this means anything beyond a secure spot in the Final.

‘Yurio!’ Yuuri calls when he spots him, and Yuri doesn’t have the time to run before there are two sets of arms around him, sandwiching him in the middle of two over-enthusiastic skaters high on victory.

‘Get off of me!’ he squawks, but Yuuri and Viktor just hold onto him a little tighter, still laughing.

It’s okay.

* * *

Missing Otabek comes in two pieces, and it’s almost exactly the same as it was before Skate America.

The first: Yuri blocks out space to practice in the rink without Viktor, Yuuri, Mila, and the juniors taking up any space, and when he jumps he imagines Otabek standing on the sidelines, clapping slowly with his stupid fond smile. He pictures Otabek sitting on the edge of his bed in Lilia Alexandrovna’s guest room instead of speaking through a phone, telling stories and offering witty rebuttals to Yuri’s complaints. He thinks of Otabek climbing tall buildings with him and the two of them watching the city at night, cars driving by and lights in windows flipping on and off and drunk Russians getting into fights in the alleyways below. He thinks and he wishes and he misses.

The second: He locks his bedroom door and waits until Lilia has long gone to bed before he closes his eyes, slides his hand down into his pants, and thinks of Otabek, his messy, wavy hair dangling in his eyes, gold eyeliner to offset smouldering irises, the lipbalm-softened feel of Otabek’s kiss. He imagines those lips wandering, Beka’s hands in his hair and on his stomach and light on the insides of his thighs and he comes with muffled gasps into his pillows, aching and wanting and horny as fuck.

The difference? There’s no shame in wanting now, not when the almost-proof of Yuri’s claim to Otabek is painted so clearly on the inside of Otabek’s arm. Suddenly, he has permission to covet. And yet Yuri can’t bring himself to say it aloud when they talk long into the night. He can't say how much he wants everything. How he wants Otabek’s comfort and his support, his pride and his determination, his loyalty and his lust. And how much he wants it close, not 5000 kilometres away.

And so he says nothing, but he thinks Otabek hears it anyways.

* * *

‘What are you thinking?’

‘You’re going to have to duck for me to kiss you soon,’ Otabek says. It’s dark on the other side of their call, but Yuri can see the pink in Otabek’s cheeks from the light of his computer screen.

‘I’m going to die, Beka,’ Yuri complains, hiding his face in his hands. ‘You can’t just say stuff like that, Jesus–’

‘Why not?’ Otabek asks. ‘I get the same reaction out of you every single time.’ Yuri peeks out to see Otabek glance down at his arm and smirk. ‘It’s not that embarrassing, Yura. It’s the truth.’

‘That makes it even worse,’ Yuri whines. His face is on fire. ‘It doesn’t bother you, that I’m going to be tall?’

‘Nothing I can do about it, is there?’ Otabek asks. ‘No, I don’t mind. I like it.’

Yuri makes an embarrassing noise. He diverts from the subject to avoid spontaneous combustion. ‘Congratulations on France.’

‘You already said that,’ Otabek says. ‘But thank you.’

Yuri leans in towards the screen a little. ‘I’m serious. I expect you to get silver at the Final this time. Knock Viktor and Yuuri on their asses.’

‘And leave gold for you?’ Otabek asks. ‘I don’t think so, Yura.’

‘Fight me.’

‘Oh, I will.’

Yuri grins, the competition running through his veins like gasoline. He loves this, loves that if you strip away their relationship, Beka is still his best friend, still his valued rival. Still loves skating as much as he does.

He wonders if he would have loved Otabek so immediately and completely if he hadn’t been a skater, too. If he didn’t understand the thrill of stepping onto a rink under the arena lights, the crowd cheering and the cameras rolling and a gold medal with his name written on it just waiting for him to go and grab it. Who else but a skater could understand what the ice means to Yuri? Who else would understand his priorities, his feelings towards his sport, and how the ice is and always be his first true love.

But he’s also kind. Honest. Sarcastic.

Maybe this crap about soulmates is actually a thing. Yuri might believe it, now.

He feels his smile dim. ‘I miss you,’ he confesses. ‘I think about you all the time. It’s not so bad when you’re closer, but when you’re all the way in fucking Almaty…’ He clears his throat. ‘But don’t think this is because of what happened in Milwaukee. I thought about you all the time before then, too.’

‘I know.’ Yuri watches Otabek jostle his computer in his lap. ‘I mean. I didn’t know it was about me, and I wasn’t even completely sure it was you. But. I knew.’

Yuri closes his eyes. ‘I didn’t tell _Dedulya_ what happened. In Milwaukee. With _Mama._ She hasn’t tried to say anything to me. No letters, no emails, no texts.’ Yuri grits his teeth. ‘Thank god.’

Otabek hums thoughtfully, his brow furrowed. ‘Next time you come to Almaty,’ he says, ‘I’ll introduce you to my parents. I’m not as close to them as Kadyr or Dina are to theirs, since I’m away so often and they are busy people. But I should have introduced you when you were here in April.’

Yuri smiles. ‘Show me how parents should be? Beka, I know how parents should be. I lived with Yuuri’s family for weeks. I’ve _met the Nikiforovs._ ’

‘Oh, and how was that?’ Otabek asks dryly.

Yuri throws a pillow at his laptop and almost knocks it off the bed. ‘Shut up. They’re perfectly nice people, all of them, and it sucks that they aren’t my parents instead, but I’m over it.’

Otabek nods. ‘Okay.’ Which probably means something else, because for all that Otabek can read Yuri like his favourite book, Yuri only ever knows what Otabek is thinking half of the time. ‘Barcelona?’

It’s kind of poetic, this repetition in Grand Prix Final locations. Or Yuri would think so, if he wasn’t that fucking lame. ‘Barcelona.’

* * *

This time, he’s practically vibrating out of his boots when he and the rest of Yakov’s team collect their bags at the airport. Even Georgi, who failed to qualify and announced his retirement at the conclusion of the NHK Trophy, has tagged along for support, and Yuri would feel bad about it if the competition didn’t sing so sweetly in his veins. And it does that right up until they get to the hotel, decreasing ever so slightly with every moment in the taxi as his anticipation rises.

It takes Yakov three exasperated attempts to get Yuri to check himself in before he gives up and does it himself because Yuri’s distracted, scanning the arrivals for Otabek and not finding him anywhere. There’s a girl wearing a Team Kazakhstan jacket chatting with a female Team Canada athlete and Yuri makes a beeline for them to demand information when Mila behind him calls, far too chipper to be subtle, ‘Otabek!’

And Yuri spots him, dressed almost uncomfortably like Viktor in monotone greys and a black peacoat for the snow outside. His head swivels to look at the source and Yuri catches his gaze, impatient and—dare he think it?—excited. If Otabek in public could be considered to ever look more than mildly interested, of course. His eyes stay on Yuri’s as he slowly takes off his gloves and all of the heat in Yuri’s body drops, because oh. Oh, _fuck._

‘I’ll catch you later, _Baba,_ ’ Yuri says quickly, pushing around the Kazakhstani girl and her friend with his bags. He plucks his room key out of Yakov’s hand and promptly blocks out any and all annoyed scolding by both of his coaches to make a beeline for the elevator, and wow, this feels a lot like Skate America.

Except there’s none of this tiptoeing around anymore, no hiding behind the pretence that all of his feelings are purely friendly.

Yuri texts Otabek his room number from inside the elevator, his skin burning with anticipation as the doors slide shut.

* * *

The knock comes fifteen minutes later and Yuri wrenches the door open, dragging Otabek inside and slamming it shut behind him, and suddenly it’s his white-knuckled fists in Otabek’s coat, the thud of Otabek’s back against the door, Otabek’s sharp inhale at the impact. Yuri chases that breath, because there’s just something about the wide-eyed look Otabek gives him, half-surprise and half-invitation, and fuck if he’s gonna turn that down. What, go easy on him? Blushing virgin Yuri Plisetsky, who once skated to chaste love and ran from the rest like it was fire and he was the blank, cold ice? Haha, fuck _that._

Otabek makes this odd, super undignified sound when Yuri smashes his lips against his, Otabek’s hands coming up to grip hard at his hips. It goes very quickly from that gross, wet, noisy kind of kissing he dreamed about all of the time into something a little bit hotter, a little bit rougher. Yuri gags at it when he sees Viktor and Yuuri doing it all the time but suddenly makes a whole lot of fucking sense why they do. God. He can’t help himself, not when Otabek’s grip tightens as Yuri’s teeth dig into his lip and he makes this weird little growly noise that sends a sharp jolt of heat all the way down Yuri’s abdomen.

Yuri breaks away to breathe embarrassingly heavily all over Otabek’s face and Otabek looks like he’s seen fucking Heaven and an Olympic gold medal. It’s both heartening and the hottest thing Yuri thinks he’s ever seen, period. To think that he’s been waiting, waiting, waiting and suddenly here it is, the promise of a boundary Yuri’s never crossed… it’s intoxicating, terrifying, and oh so tempting. And from the look on Otabek’s face, he’s been waiting, too.

If those red and magenta shades swirling on Otabek’s arm are someone else’s arousal, Yuri thinks rather viciously that they better be thinking about literally _anyone else_ because he dances with knives strapped to his boots for a living and he’s ready to fucking go. Soulmarks are garbage, he’s said it before. But—Ah, _fuck._

As Otabek’s fingers tangle beneath his messy bun, scratching and tugging right up against his scalp, Yuri thinks if the soulmarks thing is garbage and those colours are his, well, he’ll accept the garbage. Shove it down his throat and let it suffocate him, because if it gives him this? He kinda wants to die.

Otabek’s hands slide down to Yuri’s shoulders and push him back just a little. He’s breathing hard, too, his eyes darker and heavy. There’s a deep flush over his cheeks that Yuri thought was impossible, and yet there it is, giving him away.

‘Yura,’ Otabek says huskily, his eyes skittering over Yuri’s face. ‘Tell me what you want. If you want to…’

Yuri bites his lip. ‘Short program’s in two days,’ he says, even though every cell in his body is screaming for him not to. ‘Kind of important, right?’

They both stay there for a moment, breathing hard. Yuri’s skin is hot but Otabek’s is feverish under his touch. Then Yuri shifts just a little, slots his thigh in between Otabek’s legs and Otabek lets out this delicious, low, breathy moan and that’s it, all of his reservations go flying out the fucking window and they’re kissing again, hard and fast and filled with desperation.

‘Yes,’ Yuri hisses. ‘Yes, fuck, I want to, _please._ ’

Otabek walks him back towards the bed. Yuri tugs at Otabek’s coat, strips it off his shoulders and his arms and leaves it puddled on the floor as Otabek’s hands drift down Yuri’s sides and to the waistband of Yuri’s jeans. Then Otabek drags his hands back, rucking up Yuri’s t-shirt. His nails scrape against Yuri’s ribs. Yuri yanks the fabric over his head, dropping it on the floor where he’d left his Team Russia jacket. As Otabek pulls his own shirt off, Yuri slides back onto the mattress, tugs the tie out of his hair, and lets it fall around his shoulders. Otabek actually fucking _growls_ at the sight of it. Jesus.

‘I knew you liked it,’ Yuri accuses as Otabek tangles his hands into it again.

‘I told you that I liked it,’ Otabek points out, blunt nails scraping against Yuri’s scalp. Yuri purrs at the feeling. He presses into his touch as Otabek ducks his head and mouths at Yuri’s neck, humming against Yuri’s skin and making him shiver. It’s fucking amazing, Otabek’s hands in his hair, and wow, yeah, in retrospect, the hair brushing and braiding makes a whole lot of sense.

‘Yeah, but I didn’t think you meant like that,’ Yuri says, the end of it fading out with a gasp as Otabek scrapes his teeth against Yuri’s skin. ‘Wait, fuck, my costume, the neckline-’

Otabek drifts lower, his hands sliding out of Yuri’s hair as he catches a nipple in his mouth and Yuri swears, heavily, in the three languages in which he knows the words, arching up into him as Otabek’s hands settle heavily on the jut of his hips. Then Otabek exhales heavily against the damp skin as he pulls back just a little and Yuri can’t help the whining moan that slides between his teeth.

‘You’re dangerous, Yuri Plisetsky,’ Otabek says breathlessly as Yuri cants his hips up at him. Yuri watches him swallow. ‘I haven’t– I’ve never–’

‘Duh,’ Yuri says. ‘If it makes you feel better, I _really_ haven’t. Ever.’

Otabek exhales shakily again. ‘Right,’ he says, and reaches down to undo Yuri’s jeans.

* * *

Jesus fucking Christ.

Yuri’s never going to make fun of Viktor and Yuuri ever again.

* * *

It’s not like it was perfect or anything. Yuri wasn’t expecting it to be perfect, not when he didn’t know what the hell he was doing besides following the urge to get his hands on Otabek’s dick, which, well. That was just fine. Better than fine, really. But there was one moment where they just froze because neither of them knew what the fuck to do and then Yuri kicked Otabek in the ribs and now he can see the bruise and then he's pretty sure he hit his head against the headboard because it hurts a whole fucking lot.

But he’s learned a couple things. That it’s a bad idea to swipe his crap off the bed without thinking about it, because then it ends up in a mess on that floor and he almost trips over it and ends his entire fucking career trying to get a towel from the bathroom. That Otabek’s scalp is even more sensitive than Yuri’s, right along the top where his hair is longest, and he makes the most delicious sounds when Yuri twists his fingers into it and tugs. That Yuri really, really likes it when Otabek mouths at his neck, threatening to leave marks but never quite biting him hard enough to do it. That fantasy doesn’t hold a fucking candle to the real thing, here and now.

Yuri’s _doomed._

Otabek’s pulled the comforter up over Yuri’s waist. He traces invisible patterns over Yuri’s bare back the way that he’d done it over the scar, but bigger, more intricate. Yuri feels sticky from the sweat but too lazy to get up again and take a shower, and Otabek’s fingers dragging along his spine are blazingly hot. It is not altogether a bad sensation.

‘Tomorrow,’ Yuri says, and stops short. ‘Tomorrow’s it, huh?’

Otabek’s hand slides over Yuri’s side and pulls him a little closer, fingers splayed flat against his stomach.

‘Is it any different for you, coming into it a second time?’ Otabek asks.

Yuri chews at his lip. ‘Yes. No. Kind of? I have to prove myself for different reasons, but I still have to do it.’ He grimaces. ‘I can't lose.’

‘You’re still growing,’ Otabek points out.

‘Duh,’ Yuri says.

‘I mean as a skater. One loss doesn’t dictate the rest of your career.’

Yuri huffs. ‘And two or three?’

‘Shouldn't do much, either.’

Yuri turns to look at him. It’s different, somehow, yet the same: Burning dark eyes, long lashes, the crease between his brows that Yuri manages to restrain himself from touching this time. He sees something there, deep beneath the surface, and things seem a little clearer all of the sudden.

‘Do you tell yourself that, too?’ Yuri asks quietly. ‘Do you follow your own rules?’

Otabek’s breath is a slow exhale.

‘I should,’ he says. ‘I should follow my own rules. But it’s hard.’

Yuri reaches for his hand and tangles their fingers together. There’s something there in that statement that hints at cracks in a war mask, chinks in the armour beyond an athlete’s natural insecurity.

‘You deserve to medal,’ Yuri says forcefully. ‘And if you win at least I get to gloat about the fact that I helped you get there.’ He grins. ‘I can't believe you fucking choreographed a program for me.’

Otabek cracks a smile. ‘You’re inspiration enough for ten programs, Yura. A hundred, maybe.’

‘A thousand?’ Yuri presses. They chuckle. Then Yuri feels the thing that’s been gnawing at him for years twist in his stomach and his smile fades. ‘What if I don’t win, Beka? What if I don’t even make the podium? I know what they say about young Russian athletes.’

‘Who’s they?’ Otabek presses. ‘And what say do they have on things that haven’t happened yet? You’ve performed beautifully this season so far. What’s to say you’ll suddenly be unable to do it? Are you in the middle of a spurt?’

‘No,’ Yuri says sulkily.

‘And your scores have only gone up since Skate America.’

‘Yeah, that generally happens for everyone,’ Yuri says. ‘Unless you’re as inconsistent as Yuuri, and then it’s just a shot in the dark, I guess.’

Otabek squeezes his hand. ‘You’re worried about proving yourself again.’

‘Yeah.’ It’s a near voiceless exhale, like saying it out loud will make the worst happen. ‘Yeah, I am. Because if I don’t win, what am I? I’m still only part a person. Sometimes I feel like I’ve lost a limb instead of just some fucking technicolor skin. I have to- I have to make up for it somehow.’

Otabek props himself up on an elbow. ‘Yura,’ he says, his voice rough. ‘Yuranya.’

Yuri’s eyes dart up at that, his throat constricting. God. _God._ Otabek knows not to use Yurotchka, somehow, some way, when the whole world has commandeered and drained all of the meaning out of it. He’d never thought that three syllables could break him to pieces and build him back up again so quickly, but it must have done it because his brain is broken. _Yuranya, Yuranya, Yuranya._

‘You wouldn’t be less of a person if you lost a limb. You’d still be you. Nothing will change that. Nothing has changed that.’ Otabek wraps his fingers around Yuri’s arm, the pads of them resting on the ridges of the scar. He swallows. ‘You stand just as proud on your own two feet. You’ve never needed me, but you have me. Do you see the difference?’

Otabek’s arm is a violent explosion of colours. Is Yuri broken, then? There’s no fucking way he’s feeling all of that at once.

Yuri wants to protest. It’s in him to argue, to deny, to scream and shout and spit and curse at everything that makes his head spin and dares to accuse him of being wrong. _No, you’re wrong!_ he wants to argue. _You don’t know a thing about it. How could you possibly understand, dammit?_

But.

But.

But Otabek is right.

Yuri turns his eyes back down to Otabek’s hand around his wrist and sees colours dancing there between his fingers. Pinks, maybe (definitely), and reds, and streaks of silver, loops of green like vines. And then he blinks and there’s nothing there but the spiderwebs of scar tissue and Otabek’s fingers pressed against where he can’t feel them, warm on his skin but numb on the damage.

‘The medal doesn’t make Yuri Plisetsky,’ Yuri says finally. ‘Does it?’

Otabek quirks a smile. ‘Yuri Plisetsky wins the gold,’ he says.

Things settle in his stormy insides then, because duh. Obviously. Absolutely. Hasn’t that always been the way things have been? Yuri worked his ass off to get to where he is in the skating world. He did not get his hands on last season’s golds without shedding more than his fair share of blood, sweat, and tears on the ice. He did not love the ice without getting bitten for his affections. It was not easy. It was never a given, no matter how much he pretended it was in front of his rinkmates and rivals. It will never be a given. It will only be a credit to his name if he stands in the middle of the podium.

But he doesn’t have to.

_Skating is not your life._

Yuri snorts and pushes forward, pressing his face into Otabek’s warm shoulder.

‘Yeah, I think I fucking did, _alt_ _ın,’_ Yuri quips at him. It takes Otabek a moment to get it before he laughs, quiet and shivery and all sorts of fucking adorable. Yuri laughs with him, laughs and feels the weight of the world lessen a little. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow,’ Otabek echoes, and pulls him closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that M rating isn't there for nothing ;)


	18. Old Gold

He wonders if people can tell. If every set of eyes that skims over him can see the places where Otabek’s fingers and lips touched his skin, lit up like glow sticks in trails of bright green and pink. It feels like armour, remembering, and yet it’s his flesh flayed open for the ravenous flies.

‘You have a habit of disappearing into your hotel room and never coming out, wherever we go,’ Mila points out as they walk to the rink to practice. ‘What, don't you like me?’

‘Shut up,’ Yuri says, pointedly looking away. He zips his jacket up all the way, just in case. ‘Maybe I’m just tired and I hate flying all day.’

‘Ooh, defensive,’ Mila says, nudging his shoulder.

‘I am not!’

Mila snickers at him. ‘Mmm, case in point. Did you sneak off with Otabek?’

He whips his head around to see if anyone heard that, setting up fifteen different responses to that to refute it when he confirms no one’s close enough.

‘Because if you did, you weren't very subtle about it,’ Mila says blandly.

He sputters at her cat-got-the-cream expression. ‘I don't know what you’re talking about,  _Baba,’_  he says, bristling. ‘It was a long flight. Give me a break.’

‘Oh, what’s that purple mark on your neck, then?’ she asks. Automatically, he claps his hand over where she’s looking, already feeling his face warm. ‘I’m kidding. Got you.’

Yuri glowers at her. ‘That’s not a confession.’

‘I think it is.’ She nudges him. ‘Don’t worry _._ Your secret’s safe with me.’

He groans. ‘Is it that obvious?’

Mila pats his back affectionately. ‘It’s been obvious for a while, _Tigryonok._ Is it… you know…’

He feels his face go warmer, because Jesus Christ, that’s embarrassing. In answer, he tugs a little on his bracelet, watching her eyes track down to it. ‘Yeah.’  

Mila squeals and pulls him into a celebratory hug that he immediately tries to fight off, flailing and squirming. ‘Don’t you fucking dare try to lift me! Let me go!’

‘Aww, Yurotchka, that’s so cute!’

_‘Shut up!’_

She laughs and pecks his cheek, which he promptly wipes off with his sleeve when she lets him go. ‘Congratulations. I mean it. It’s so poetic, the Russian Fairy and the Hero of Kazakhstan—I mean, the Russian Ice Tiger and the Hero of Kazakhstan!’ She laughs at him when he tries to swipe at her, dodging swiftly, and after a moment he can’t help but giggle along. Fucking hell, he’s turning into the ridiculous girl from one of those American high school movies (which he’s totally _never_ binge-watched in the dark, nope, never). 

‘You’re obvious to me, Yurotchka,’ she says affectionately when they calm down. The name rings hollowly in his chest, but he gets the intent of it. It’s not so bad. ‘Who knows what that looks like to the real world. But if you ever need me to suplex a bitch—’

‘Alright, alright, I got it.’ Yuri bats at her again. ‘Clingy crazy woman.’

‘You know it!’ Mila says cheerfully, and waits until Yuri caves and opens the door for her.

* * *

Competition day dawns with a perfect sunrise and all Yuri feels is quiet. It makes no sense at all: He’s in the middle of a massive city filled with tourists and vendors and Barcelona’s unique lure for partiers, and yet, everything just feels suspended in space. Not a sound threatens to hit him until he reaches out an arm greedily for the made side of his bed and the sheets rustle with his disappointment. Then again, he knows this separation is logical, that the day that dawns ahead demands that he place the entirety of his focus on the ice beneath his feet and every eye riveted on his performance.

It doesn't stop the quiet morning from being lonely, though.

He stares at himself in the mirror, hair a tangled mess, eyes bright and determined. He remembers doing this in a similar hotel room on the same morning, except he was a handful of centimetres shorter, his hair was at his shoulders instead of his chest, and there was something else in his expression, something haunted and brittle and innocent all the same. He pokes at his cheeks and leans in, squinting for the differences. It’s hard to notice changes in yourself, even in instances of deja vu like this one, and he gives up after a while, grasping for his hairbrush to yank it through the knots.

Lilia Alexandrovna does his hair for every competition as she did last year. But even after he’s zipped and buttoned up his costume himself, watching the fiery cracks of it glittering under the chiffon and the spandex, routine doesn't feel right. He throws his jacket on, zips up his skate bag, and stands at a crossroads of hallways, his door clicking shut behind him. To the right: Familiarity, the superstition of athletes around the world. Never change a pre-competition routine. Eat the same breakfast. Drink the same number of glasses of water. Go to the same room to get your hair done. Hold your head high. Act like you are above your rivals so they don’t tear you to shreds.

He swallows thickly and, hairbrush in hand and box of elastics and bobby pins shoved into his skate bag, veers left towards Otabek’s room instead.

* * *

The roar of the rink is thunderous in Yuri's ears, but it’s not just the crowd that he hears screaming and shouting—for him, for Otabek, for Viktor and Yuuri, for Giacometti and Daley. It’s the hum of the ice, vibrating with anticipation, waiting for the first of them to mar it again and make history. She sings for them, but most importantly she sings for _him_. She who propelled him to glory, who dragged him back down and dashed him against her unforgiving edges when he flew too high.

He will fly high, higher than he’s ever gone, but he will not make that mistake again.

It’s an unspoken rule to not look at each other as they walk to the locker rooms with their coaches, but god, does he itch to glance behind him at Otabek. He doesn't. That would break the spell, the illusion that nothing’s changed, that he is still as cold and fierce and untouchable as he was last year. That Yuri Plisetsky is a spirit, a fairy in the truest sense of the word— _vila-kin_ , _perelesnyk_ , _drakon_ , a beautiful, terrible creature who haunts the nightmares of his enemies—and does not have a heart to give away.

Not when there’s a gold at stake.

Daley and Giacometti will skate before him, so Yuri waits, stretches his legs out, warms up in the hallway, does anything but succumb to the desire to break from the charade.

But he doesn't forget Otabek’s fingers in his hair, the charged memories in every slip and slide and swish of his braids as Otabek dutifully followed instructions and piled them up securely on top of Yuri’s head. There are strands of red and orange ribbon, too, thin and metallic and woven into his braids. They catch the light when Yuri turns his head and he thinks they might be leftover from the burning Otabek’s fingers left in their wake.

‘Cold, Yuri?’ Viktor remarks. Yuri touches his cheeks, warm with the thought of what else those fingers had done two nights before, and he turns away.

‘I never get cold.’ He eyes the door to the rink as Giacometti disappears through it with his coach, already smirking seductively for the spectators. ‘Has Katsudon had his meltdown yet?’

‘Yura,’ Viktor warns.

Yuri shrugs. ‘Sorry.’ But only a little bit. ‘Have _you_ had your meltdown yet?’

Viktor gives him the smile that Yuri gets when Viktor is totally pissed at him, all pleasant and bright and utterly poisonous. ‘Have you had yours?’

‘Fuckin’ touché,’ Yuri says, and tangles his trembling fingers behind his back. ‘ _Davai,_ Viktor. I hope you don't fall too hard on your ancient ass.’ Together, they watch Giacometti do obscene things to the ice through the television screen. Yuri knows he’ll be both disturbed and uncomfortably aroused if he keeps watching, so he focuses anywhere else—anywhere else happening to be on Otabek’s back, halfway across the room. ‘Swear you’ll kill me before you make me skate to something like that.’

‘Make you?’ Viktor laughs. ‘Yura, I thought you had some faith in me.’

‘Yeah, yeah, shut up.’

He backs away halfway through Giacometti’s routine towards where Lilia and Yakov are waiting for him. It dawns on him now that this is the first time Yakov has had two of his male skaters advance to the Grand Prix Final at the same time. He wonders as he unzips his jacket and passes it into Lilia’s outstretched hand if Yakov has a favourite to win. If that favourite is him, or if wunderkind Viktor Nikiforov gets a free pass to Yakov’s gruff affections in spite of what happened last season.

Or maybe, he thinks as Giacometti’s music crescendos towards the climax of his piece, Yakov is just proud of both of them.

He looks up and stops for a moment when he sees Stéphane Lambiel, clear as day, directly across from the gate in the stands. And suddenly there’s a lump the size of an orange in Yuri’s throat because all that expectation comes crashing right back down on his shoulders, threatening to crush him into the floor until he’s nothing more than a red stain on the concrete. Stéphane is smiling but Yuri is not, because now all Yuri can think about is the quad loop he lands perfectly every single goddamn time in practice but can't ever manage to complete in front of an audience. The one that he vowed to work on and never fixed. The one that will make Stéphane’s program a perpetual failure.

Fuck, is he trembling? Some ice tiger he is.

Giacometti passes him at the gate, covered in sweat and flushed with the high of his run. Yuri wasn’t paying attention. Did he do it right? Did he land everything? He can’t tell; Giacometti’s expression is as furiously sultry and teasing as it always is, even in exhaustion. The Swiss skater flicks at the loose strands of Yuri’s updo as he passes by and it’s enough to snap Yuri’s focus back to the ice, to the crowd eagerly awaiting Giacometti’s scores and for…

Him.

Giacometti’s scores are low. So he fell then. Maybe twice. And yet the man is all smiles, promises of a better free program, his partner’s reassuring arm linked around his. Yuri steals a glance at the doors to the locker room and wonders how Otabek is watching him. Will he be watching for the scores, analytical as they all have to be? Or will he be watching Yuri the way Yuri watches him now, reading into the story that Otabek wrote for him?

He presses his gloved fingertips into the scar tissue under his sleeve.

Yuri sees a fall from grace in his short program. Lilia Alexandrovna, who looks at him with the stern expectation of a woman with rod of steel up her spine but whom he will catch afterwards wiping under her eyes to keep her mascara from smudging on camera, created something too fitting for the Yuri of last season. He is disgraced and searching for redemption. The courtesy qualifier.

But he is also a dragon, and a dragon who falls from grace is still a dragon at the end of the day, isn’t it?

Without really thinking about it, he sets his skate guards on the edge of the boards and steps out onto the rink.

* * *

He’s practiced this shit for months.

Everything goes silent. No cheering, no screaming, no applause when he lands his jumps. It’s a fight to get his arms up but he does it. It’s a fight to keep his balance when he lands but he does it. It’s a fight to curve his spine and get his leg straighter in the air above his head but he fucking does it and it’s…

Quiet.

He feels it, the dragon Lilia wrote for him. Curled beneath the mountain, smouldering beneath the rocks and heating them to magma with his breaths, fuming with fury over his losses. He remembers the innocence of his childhood and the glory of his first spoils, the promise of the world and the scorn of the elders when he lost it so easily. The dragon wants no one’s pity. He hungers, purely, for vengeance.

(A memory from a Skype call, a reflection on an old routine whispered into the dark of the night: _The whole world is waiting for you_.  _Take centre stage. This is your time!_ )

And vengeance he receives.

Yuri is not fifteen anymore. His body is longer, heavier, and harder to bend. His scales are a little bigger now, and that’s okay.

He is points shy of his record, but he does not fall. In the end, as he strips his gloves off and wipes the sweat from his forehead and they announce his scores, he decides it’s good enough for now.

* * *

_‘Davai!’_ Yuri screams, bent over the railing in the stands with his hands cupped around his mouth. Otabek, straight-backed and regal as always at the edge of the rink, meets Yuri’s eyes and gives him a solemn thumbs-up.

It’s reassuring, how some things are exactly the same.

* * *

Yuuri skates an ode to the cherry blossoms in his short program, but also an ode to Hatsetsu, to the Katsuki and Nishigori families and to his friends and the ice in the way that he skated his free program last season. It looks a light, fun dance to spring on the surface, but Yuri has seen Yuuri break down over this, shoulders shaking as he bends over the railing at the rink at home with Viktor’s reassuring hand at the small of his back. There’s a heavy thank you hidden behind the soft pinks and whites of his costume, the complicated spins and perfect step sequences and emotion packed into his smiles.

Yuuri is not perfect. He is consistently inconsistent, and one gold medal-winning short program from two weeks ago does not translate into a perfect run today. But it doesn’t even matter that he’s starting out as low as he did last year; everyone knows how easily he can jump up the podium if he tries hard enough.

Yuri is not crying. Nope. No way. He’s a grown-ass man (okay, maybe not, but close enough, okay?), he’s not weeping over his bitter rival’s fucking beautiful routine that he’s seen a hundred times bef—god fucking dammit.

He digs his nails into Otabek’s arm. Otabek doesn’t even flinch, but Yuri can see how shiny his eyes are, and that’s a testament to Katsudon’s abilities in a nutshell.

* * *

Viktor skates and the whole audience falls so fucking quiet that Yuri can hear Viktor’s blades scraping against the ice as the sound echoes around the arena in time with the music. And when he sits in the kiss and cry, his fingers tangled with Yuuri’s in his lap as they eagerly await the score that edges Yuri into second, Yuri begrudgingly thinks that’s not bad for an old man at his last Grand Prix Final.

* * *

They stand out on the balcony of Yuri’s room that night, Yura-and-Beka, and watch the city lights flicker and dance, the cars roar past as they speed off into the distance and the party-goers mill about on the pavement below.

‘I think the system’s rigged,’ Yuri declares. ‘You deserved more presentation points. Your routine was flawless.’

Otabek shrugs. ‘Nikiforov is Russian.’

‘Hey, fuck you.’ Yuri shoves him with his shoulder.

‘Surely I’m not the first person to suggest that the ISU is biased towards your team.’ Otabek smiles a little. ‘No, Nikiforov’s routine was admirable. I still have a lot to learn.’

‘A lot to learn my ass. Fucking quad lutz.’ Yuri shakes his head. ‘And third’s not a bad place to be in. The free program’s more important. Yours is fucking great, too, so—’

‘Ah, you’re biased, too,’ Otabek interrupts, laughter in his voice, and Yuri shoves him harder with the same giggles.

‘I’m serious! You promised me silver, asshole.’

‘I promised you no such thing. That was all you.’ Otabek leans on the railing and gazes out at the city. ‘I want to win gold for Kazakhstan. That has not changed.’

There is determination in the set of Otabek’s jaw that hints at the cracks in the mask, the chinks in the armour. Yuri tugs on his arm.

‘Come to bed with me,’ Yuri insists. Otabek throws him a sideways glance and Yuri rolls his eyes, tugging harder. ‘That’s not what I fucking meant– Sleep, you pervert, god.’

Otabek snorts but goes anyways, sliding the door shut behind him.

* * *

Yuri’s not nervous this time. Why would he be? Viktor has barely a point on him but it’s just the short program and—

Otabek’s is perfect. Yuri can’t think about Viktor now, not with Otabek’s fucking love song drawn out on the ice for Yuri, plain and clear. And a love song it is, even though it took Yuri ages to figure it out, but now that he knows it’s the most obvious thing in the world. But the kicker’s this: No one else knows that it’s a love song. It just looks and sounds like the Hero of Kazakhstan has gone for a change of theme. He’s paused by a stream to clean his sword and feed his horse, to set down his gun and write a letter home, to remind the world that being a hero doesn’t mean being a valiant warrior all of the time.

(He glances up to the sky and holds out his hand to his flighty soulmate. He invites Yuri, bitter dragon, to take one dance with him across the stars before the creature disappears back into the forest to hunt for lost princesses and ambitious knights.)

(Ha. The hero courting the dragon!)

It’s perfect and it’s a love song disguised as an exploration, and even when he concedes his lead to Katsuki Yuuri’s sappy-as-fuck wordless, perfect letter to Viktor Nikiforov, Yuri thinks that it’s probably the nicest, most beautiful thing anyone has ever done or will ever do for him, win or not.

The nerves come back at full force when Viktor steps out into the rink and writes the reply to Yuuri’s letter to thunderous applause. He overrotates once, which is a surprise to everyone watching but the group of skaters who saw him struggle with it every other practice, but that’s not enough to hurt him. It’s not Yuuri’s record, but it’s damn close when they announce the scores over the speakers. Yuri even thinks he spots Yakov fucking crying, and great, that answers the favoritism question.

Lilia takes his skate guards one last time, glaring at the weeping mess that is the Russian team, blubbering over the happy couple. Viktor and Yuuri’s tag-team lovefest is so sappy Yuri thinks the rink is covered in pink syrup. Disgusting. (Beautiful–agh, fuck, he’s infected.)

‘You’ve got this, Yura!’ Mila shouts. _‘Davai!’_ Her competition is over, her gold medal waiting for her at the awards ceremony. She’s loose and relaxed in the way that only a winner can be.

It doesn’t help.

It doesn’t help until a hand lands on his shoulder and Otabek, still sweaty and gross and high on adrenaline, tugs Yuri close, leaning in until his breath is hot on Yuri’s ear.

 _‘Davai,_ Yuranya,’ he murmurs, low and intimate, before he offers Yuri a friendly pat on the back for the cameras and walks away. Yuri stares after him, mind utterly blank for a moment, before everything kicks back into gear, his focus sharpening to full clarity as his face heats up and shocks the cold numbness from his mind.

Jesus fuck.

Yuri blushes like a fucking moron on international television. Then he looks back at the rink and sees it inviting him instead of rejecting him in favour of Russia’s favourite drama queen. He can feel Otabek’s determination settle into his bones, giving him a hero’s strength to give Stéphane’s program the performance it deserves. With a grin stretching on his face, he bounds onto the ice and spreads his arms up to the roar of the crowd.

‘On the ice, representing Russia: Yuri Plisetsky!’

* * *

_‘What an upset. And a triple world record-holder now, too!’_

_‘It’s amazing, isn’t it? He’s half Nikiforov’s age and we’ve got the same reaction from the crowd. Look at that, scenes of jubilation from the Russians and the world here in Barcelona as Plisetsky delivers again.’_

_‘Here’s a look at the beginning to that quadruple loop that gave him so much trouble at the qualifying competitions. The altitude, and then where he always loses his balance—'_

_‘Look at it, like water. He makes it look so effortless, just like his quad salchow. And a skater who can make a quad sal look as easy as a triple…’_

_‘Phenomenal. How you can have skating skills like that and jumping skills like that? Maybe a suspicious inside edge there–’_

_‘Oh, but on the whole, you can’t criticise very much. Yuri’s skating is so special because he makes everything look so—’_

‘Would you turn that off?’ Yuri complains, throwing an arm over his eyes. ‘It’s getting obnoxious.’

Otabek chuckles. ‘What, tired of hearing Weir fawn over you?’

‘Jesus Christ, yes, make it stop.’

Otabek switches off the TV. ‘See? It gets old after a while.’

Yuri rolls over. ‘I’ll bask in the Americans’ praise later. Right now I just want to sleep. I’m tired, Beka.’

‘Mmm.’ The bed dips as Otabek settles back into it, pulling Yuri closer and burying his nose in Yuri’s hair. He’s a man of habits, it seems. Yuri is delighted. ‘Congratulations.’

Yes. There’s a confirmation somewhere in there, beneath the initial euphoria and relief, that states that Yuri Plisetsky is not a firework, bright and brilliant and explosive for a moment but gone the next, sputtered out into ashes fluttering back to the ground. He knows it's there because he’s been searching for it for almost a year now, written in gold and stamped in the history books. He will not follow the trend of Russian prodigies. Loath as he is to admit it, he would much rather be the new and improved Viktor Nikiforov than a one-season wonder. Fuck that.

Yuri glances at the medal, thrown haphazardly onto the bedside table in a fit of celebration last night. He remembers very vividly how it happened, high on adrenaline and victory as he was. The same way his fancy prince’s costume and Otabek’s watercolour tunic ended up in hapless heaps on the floor next to his discarded bobby pins, the same way he got the purpling bruises on the insides of his goddamn peach-skin thighs and how the sheets ended up tangled around his ankles in a trap.

It was a good night.

‘I’m sorry you didn’t get yours.’ It sounds all sappy coming out of Yuri’s mouth, soft and unassertive. He should work on that.

Otabek sighs. ‘There is always the next Final. And without Katsuki and Nikiforov, it would be shameful to miss the podium. I don’t intend to do it a third time. Besides, _meniñ_ _alt_ _ın,_ you only give me more inspiration to beat you next year.’ He runs his thumbs over Yuri’s bare abdomen and Yuri shivers. ‘I know your weaknesses. I intend to learn more of them.’

‘Fuck you,’ Yuri says without any malice, and reaches up to tug at Otabek’s longer strands. Otabek exhales sharply against Yuri’s ear and Yuri grins smugly. ‘I know yours too, asshole. I’m not giving up my winning streak on the second year.’

‘Good.’ Otabek nips at Yuri’s ear. ‘I expect a fight out of you, Yuranya.’

Yuri laughs and just manages to tear his eyes away from the gold medal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Vila-kin_ : Vila are female wind spirits from Slavic folklore; young women who died before their wedding days. They are the protector of women, and dance men to their deaths if so displeased. They are most popularly recognised as the 'Veela' in the Harry Potter series and the Wilis from the ballet _Giselle._  
>  _Perelesnyk_ : A figure in Slavic (Ukrainian) mythology similar to an incubus; a spirit of seduction. (Katsuki Yuuri was a Perelesnyk in my Viktuuri Cinderella AU fic, Ashes!)
> 
> **The commentary is the result of me watching Yulia Lipnitskaya and Yuzuru Hanyu's runs during the Sochi Olympics and piecing together bits of the commentator's praise over their beautiful routines. One of those commentators for Yuzu was, indeed, the one and only Johnny Weir, self-proclaimed Russophile and inspiration for both Viktor's blue roses and Yuri's back-arching slide in WTTM. Of course he'd gush about Yuri's glorious win!
> 
> Next chapter is the last one. Wow. Thank you for all of your support over these last couple months... it's been a blast.


	19. Cherry Blossom Pink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a little bittersweet for me, posting this final chapter of NPM. It's been quite the journey, and I want to thank you so much for sticking it through with me. I've never received a response to a work like I have to this one. I've never been motivated to finish a multi-chapter work before, either. Give yourselves a pat on the back, because it's entirely due to you that we've reached this point. Thank you so very much, from the bottom of my heart to yours.
> 
> Now with some more fabulous art by Kiraly/worldsentwined. I'm dead, k? [_Find it here!_](http://worldsentwined.tumblr.com/post/160462099209/maybe-the-uncertainty-is-the-point-i-think-itd)

He’s not gloating.

Okay, maybe he’s gloating a little bit.

But isn’t that the point of the exhibition gala? To show off without worrying about points? It’s only the sappy people like Yuuri and Viktor who use their exhibitions to make other statements, and even then all they do is throw more wordless declarations of love at each other over the boards.

With songs sung by the same artist.

Yuri nudges Otabek by the gate. ‘What do you think of that?’

Otabek wipes the sweat from his jaw with the back of his fingerless glove. ‘I think it’s excessive, but Nikiforov has never done things by halves.’

Yuri turns back to the ice to watch Viktor skate. ‘I don’t think he was expecting to lose.’

‘I don’t think he lost,’ Otabek counters. ‘I think he got what he wanted.’

Together, they look over at Yuuri, standing on the other side of the rink and watching his mate with hearts in his eyes, the light reflecting off of the gold on his finger every time the spotlights swerve in his direction.

‘But I think he will fight harder at every other competition you two have together for the rest of the season,’ Otabek adds after Viktor executes his signature quad flip, the only quad he’s daring to do during his exhibition, with effortless grace. ‘I’d like to defeat him, just once, at Worlds.’

‘And I’ll beat you again, and we can bump him to third,’ Yuri says, crossing his arms.

‘We’ll see,’ Otabek says noncommittally. Yuri shoves him with his shoulder.

‘Children,’ Lilia hisses in warning, and they both immediately spring to attention half a metre apart, eyes forward to the ice.

As the applause rings through the arena as Viktor’s routine comes to a close, Yuri inches closer again. ‘Show me your exhibition program again sometime? Not on television?’

Otabek looks at him and pointedly runs his fingers over the open buttons on the plain, tight black shirt he’d worn in his program. Yuri swallows. ‘Sure,’ Otabek agrees with a straight face. ‘In St. Petersburg.’

‘Right,’ Yuri says, right before Lilia prods him in the back to nudge him towards the gate before he’s late.

Yuri takes off his jacket and hands it to her with his skate guards. She narrows her eyes at his costume but apparently deems it appropriate enough for the ice (not like she could do much about it if she didn’t), because she tuts and waves him forward as Viktor starts to make his way towards the gate. Yuri jabs him in the shoulder as he passes and slaps a plastic crown on his head. Yuri relishes the confused look on Viktor’s face for just a moment before he schools his expression and clears his throat.

‘Go stand over there,’ he instructs, pointing to the other side of the rink. ‘I need you for my skate.’

‘Why?’

‘Just do it, I’m late,’ Yuri says, and Viktor goes without another word. Satisfied with where Viktor is standing, Yuri takes one look back at Otabek, shoots him a thumbs-up, and slides back along the boards to take up his starting pose.

* * *

_I'm taking back the crown_

_I'm all dressed up and naked_

_I see what's mine and take it_

_(Finders keepers, losers weepers)_

* * *

Okay, maybe he’s gloating a lot.

* * *

Yuri drinks water at the banquet, because he is a responsible young athlete and he knows he needs to replenish his fluids after three days of taxing exercise.

(That’s a lie, he’s drinking water because Lilia Alexandrovna has the superhuman ability to know the moment he tries to sneak a glass of champagne away from one of the trays. It’s fucking unfair.)

‘Yura!’ Viktor calls, and before Yuri can flee from Viktor he’s got a pleasantly buzzed silver medalist hanging off his shoulders. ‘I was thinking–’

‘No,’ Yuri says immediately. ‘No, I don’t want to go out to dinner with you and Yuuri and all your stupid skater friends or whatever it is you want.’

Viktor blinks slowly at him. ‘Oh, no,’ he says cheerfully. ‘That was a disaster last time we did that around a competition.’

‘Yeah, that was your fault, arrogant bastard,’ Yuri says.

‘Maybe,’ Viktor acquiesces. ‘No, no, I wanted to ask if you still wanted me to be your coach.’

Yuri stares at him, trying to find the joke in that. But the look on Viktor’s face is completely honest, even if his cheeks are flushed from the alcohol, and that alone is enough to make Yuri waver. ‘You’re drunk,’ Yuri says anyways, cautious to the end. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘Mmm, I know exactly what I’m saying,’ Viktor says, tilting his flute at Yuri. Yuri pushes it back upright before Viktor can empty its contents out on the ground. When did these things turn from formal events into circus shows?

Yuuri giggles and throws an arm around Yuri from the other side and oh, right.

‘Did you ask him?’ Yuuri prods.

‘He thinks I don’t mean it,’ Viktor says mournfully.

‘He means it,’ Yuuri adds unhelpfully. Yuri shoves both of them off. ‘No, no, really, we’ve–we’ve been talking about it for a while!’

‘I want to coach, Yura,’ Viktor says earnestly. ‘And Yuuri’s done after this season, so–’

‘You’re WHAT?!’ Yuri screeches. That earns him disapproving glares from around the room but he doesn’t give a fuck. ‘No, no, you can’t retire, I’ll kill you–’

Yuuri laughs. ‘Come on, let’s go sit down and talk.’

Yuri reluctantly follows them to a table and plops into a chair, glaring both of them down. ‘The fuck, Katsudon, you’re not serious.’

Yuuri shrugs. ‘I’m going to finish out the season. And if they invite me to Pyeongchang, of course I won’t turn it down! But… yes, I’m serious.’

Yuri slumps. ‘Fuck. Give me that.’ He swipes the champagne flute from Yuuri’s hands and drains the whole thing in one go before slamming it back down on the table.

His hands are shaking. He pulls them under the table to hide them before Viktor and Yuuri notice how actually fucking terrifying the idea of skating on that rink at home without them giggling and being gross and talented all over the ice is. He looks at Yuuri and feels the knot in his throat get a little bigger, because fuck. Fuck. There goes another one, ready to leave Yuri adrift and alone.

‘Look, I know I haven’t been friendliest rival.’ He waits for them to laugh, but they don’t. Mildly encouraged, he goes on. ‘And I know I’m a shitty rinkmate but I…’

( _I like competing against you. I looked up to both of you, once. You make me want to fight. I’m challenged because of you. I wasn’t challenged in juniors. I won’t be challenged like this again if you’re not there. What’s the point without you?_ )

‘Yurio, don’t cry,’ Yuuri says.

‘Shut up, I’m not crying,’ Yuri says. ‘Why would I cry over you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Yuuri says blandly, and passes him a napkin. Yuri mops at his wet face with it.

‘I don’t like change,’ Yuri confesses after a moment, glaring at his lap. ‘And too fucking much has been changing. Not you, too. I’m used to Viktor coaching but _you,_ gone too? The fuck are you going to do without the competition?’ He sits upright. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going back to Japan. Yuuri, I swear to god, the chicken nugget isn’t worth it.’

‘That what?’ Yuuri asks, but Yuri barrels on.

‘This is betrayal. You’re betraying me for a chicken nugget and stealing away my competition and I can’t deal with this, you selfish hog, I can’t!’

‘Yura.’

Yuri gasps and immediately feels all of the panic seep out of him as Otabek’s hand lands on his shoulder. It’s like he’d just fallen into a frozen lake and been pulled out of it to be wrapped in a fluffy towel on the shore. All three of them look up at Otabek, who stares impassively at Viktor and Yuuri for a moment before he turns the entirety of his attention back to Yuri.

‘Do you need something to drink?’ ( _Do you need me?_ )

Yuri’s eyes dart to the empty champagne glass in front of him. ‘Not water. Don’t let Lilia Alexandrovna see you.’ ( _Yeah, I do._ )

Viktor and Yuuri are silent for a while after Otabek disappears, exchanging looks and gestures Yuri doesn’t understand and doesn’t like at all. Finally, Yuuri kicks Viktor under the table and the latter turns back to Yuri, folding his hands on the table and taking a breath.

‘What Yuuri decides to do is up to him. I know I would like to coach next season, and hopefully many more to come,’ Viktor says.

Yuri knits his fingers together. ‘What are you going to do, then?’ he demands of Yuuri, reason taking ahold of him again.

Yuuri shifts. ‘Um. Well. I want to coach too, in the future. But I think I’ll start with choreography. I helped you, right?’

Yuri’s too proud to deem that with a response, but he’s sure Yuuri understands the look on his face anyways. ‘And you’re staying in Russia?’

Viktor and Yuuri give him twin smiles. ‘I wouldn't leave for the world. You’d miss me that much, huh?’ Yuuri asks.

‘Shut up, no I wouldn’t.’ Yuri glowers at them before glaring down at his flute.

Yuuri gets up again. ‘I think I’ll go get drinks, too,’ he says, swiping his empty glass from in front of Yuri. ‘I’ll be right back.’ He smiles knowingly at the two of them and disappears into the crowd.

Yuri continues to stare down at the spot where the glass was.

‘You told me to ask you again when I was done competing,’ Viktor says. ‘I’m a little early, I know, but I thought I might offer anyways.’

‘I knew you were faking that forgetful thing, you dickbag,’ Yuri says bitingly.

‘Not faking,’ Viktor offers. ‘I am… making more of an effort not to forget about you, now. You didn’t deserve that from me.’

( _I’m sorry,_ Yuri hears.)

‘You’d coach me even after how horrible I was to you and Yuuri?’ Yuri mumbles.

‘I think you’re growing up, Yura,’ Viktor offers. ‘And I think there are more people in your life to lessen your anger with the world.’

Yuri’s finger twitches on the table as he looks up, heart in his throat. Viktor gives him a smile, a genuine one that Yuri has never seen turned his way, and…

Fuck, he doesn’t even have to make a choice, does he?

‘I’ll think about it,’ he says anyways as Otabek and Yuuri return, trailing Mila, Sara, Giacometti, and Daley along with them. Otabek passes Yuri his champagne and slips into the seat next to him as Giacometti strikes up a conversation with Viktor and Daley shoots both of them a suspicious glare over his glass.

‘Good?’ Otabek asks quietly.

‘Yeah,’ Yuri says, and puts his back to Lilia, sipping at the bubbly drink before she can come and snatch it away. ‘Yeah, I think so.’

Otabek gives him a look. _Liar,_ it says. He glances down at his arm, hidden under the table, before he eyes Yuri with accusation. Well. There goes all of Yuri's future attempts to keep anything from Otabek Altin, apparently. 

It's going to take some getting used to.

Fifteen minutes in, he gives up and concedes. What does it matter, anyways? Otabek's right. Yuri's about to vibrate out of his seat. 

‘This is lame,’ Yuri declares, because there’s no other way he can put this without giving away how much he needs some goddamned fresh air to the rest of the table. ‘Let’s go get tea or something.’

* * *

It’s chilly but quiet as they wander through the cobblestone streets, cardboard cups of tea dangling from their fingers. Different flowers this year. The hardy kind, the ones that can stand the 5°C weather and still be bright and pretty under the streetlights.

Poetic, how things can be completely different and exactly the same. Yuri’s back in the same place, walking the same street with the same person after the same competition, ending up right where they were by the numbers. He’s nine centimetres taller and a whole year older and he can do two more quads than he could last season. He’s fallen hard and dragged himself back up again, right back where he started.

 _Agape_ may be long gone on the ice, but it remains and grows in him, a dragon coiling around it to protect it. He sees it in almost everyone: _Dedulya._ Mila. Viktor. Katsudon. Georgi. Yakov. Lilia Alexandrovna. Stéphane. Kadyr, Dinara, Amir, Denis, Nuralia, Amina. Yuuko and her family. Mari and Katsudon’s parents.

Otabek.

And, of course, for so long: _Eros. Eros_ in those childish fantasies about Stéphane, the foolish kiss with Anna, agonising moments of building, building, building with Otabek. The frustration of no outlet. The sweet release of the first passion-fueled time.

The _Pragma_ he thought his father had stolen from him, ripped to pathetic little shreds and burned like garbage.

‘I’m moving back into the dorms when we get back,’ Yuri says as they walk. ‘And the rule of that is you can’t have people in the rooms after dark for… you know.’ He feels his face heat up. ‘But I know one of the juniors had a friend stay for a week on her sofa because the friend was from Canada and I already asked, they said I could do the same thing.’

‘Well, you’re Yuri Plisetsky,’ Otabek points out. ‘I doubt they would have said no.’

‘Right,’ Yuri says, like he remembered that when he was asking. The Yuri of last year would have remembered. He’d be rubbing it in people’s faces.

He can’t believe he forgot about that.

‘It’ll be kind of messy and I’ll probably still be trying to put stuff back but… you know. I wasn’t really thinking about it when I got your present. So you better not mind the mess.’

Otabek laughs. ‘I’ll clean up for you.’

‘Don’t you dare. My shit goes where I say it goes, which is on the floor.’ Yuri presses his hands into his jacket pockets. ‘So. I was thinking you were right.’

‘Right about what?’ Otabek asks.

‘Hmm. The world is different outside of Almaty.’ And what he means is _the world is different outside of skating._ ‘But I don’t mind it too much. Different doesn’t mean bad.’

Otabek nods. ‘No, it doesn’t.’

Yuri reaches for his sleeve and tugs on it. ‘Can I?’

Otabek flips his arm up and Yuri wraps his fingers around Otabek’s wrist, right over the mark. It’s warm under his touch. He’s not sure if that’s because his fingers are cold or because Otabek is constantly always warm or if there’s something about the mark that reacts to him touching it, thrumming with life and promise.

‘We’ll have to work at it,’ Otabek says after they’ve walked a ways, one continuous mess of skater joined at the wrist. ‘These things don’t just stay perfect because we want them to. We… we have to talk.’

‘I understand your priorities.’ Yuri curls his fingers in his pocket. ‘And you know mine. Good thing they’re exactly the fucking same. This can’t be our first priority for a while.’

‘Exactly.’ Otabek tosses his empty cup out and Yuri follows suit. ‘I’m staying in Almaty.’

‘And I’m staying in St. Petersburg.’

‘I might go to college.’

‘Really?’ That’s news. Otabek shrugs.

‘I might. Can’t skate forever. Katsuki went to college, and I think that’s smart.’

‘Right.’ Yuri hasn’t even thought about that. ‘Options.’

‘Contingency plans,’ Otabek agrees.

‘Will you stay in Almaty then?’

Otabek tilts his head a little, which means _yes._

‘I might change your mind, then,’ Yuri says, nudging his shoulder. ‘Once you’ve seen St. Petersburg. It's not like you couldn't go to uni in Russia.'

‘You’ve been to Almaty,’ Otabek points out, and Yuri deflates a little.

‘Yeah. It’s fucking gorgeous.’

They walk. The thoughts churn through Yuri’s head, all what-ifs and worst case scenarios and memories of screaming, yelling, glass shattering against the wall, bottles and cigarettes dangling from loose fingers. What if, what if–

‘You’re thinking too much,’ Otabek admonishes.

‘I can’t help it.’ Yuri’s grip tightens around Otabek’s wrist. ‘I want to know everything will be okay. I thought finding you was supposed to make the future easier.’ He grits his teeth. ‘I mean, I never thought I’d find you. But I thought that’s how this thing works.’

Otabek is quiet for a while before he pulls his arm up and moves Yuri’s grip to his hand. It’s a hesitant movement, unsure, but Yuri doesn’t even bother looking around before he takes the gesture for what it is and tangles their fingers together. Otabek’s shoulders relax.

He’s nervous, too, and for some reason that calms Yuri more than talking about it ever could.

‘Maybe the uncertainty is the point,’ Otabek says. ‘I think it’d be boring if we knew exactly what we were doing.’

Oh.

‘Forgive me for fucking shit up, then,’ Yuri mumbles. ‘Because it’s gonna happen.’

‘I know.’ Otabek takes a breath. ‘Only if you’ll forgive me in return.’

‘Of course I fucking will, isn’t that a given?’ _What if?_ His grip tightens again. ‘Within reason.’

They’re back on the street now with an uphill climb to return to the bike. Yuri knows what they’ll do next. They’ll ride around the city for a while, maybe go get ice cream or something before they head back to the hotel to pack. Yuri thinks he might be able to convince Otabek to stay the night again so Yuri can cement the memory of what it feels like to sleep in Beka’s arms in his head. They’ll probably do something stupid like talk all night even though Yuri’s flight is at six in the fucking morning. And then Yuri will go home with his gold medal and the memory and throw away all of his black bands because Otabek’s not fucking dead and he’s not going to pretend anymore.

He was Yuri Plisetsky last year when they did this, when Yuri was full of bitterness and hatred and high on the adrenaline of his first major win. He was Yuri Plisetsky and he was alone, then and now in his mind, teetering on the edge of a fall into the abyss that he pretended to know wasn’t coming.

And he’s still Yuri Plisetsky. He’s still walking the streets of Barcelona with a gold medal and the future spread wide open before him, inviting and terrifying and thrilling.

This won’t change that. Nothing will change that. Not if he has anything to say about it. Not if he can control how things go.

‘Beka,’ he says, and takes a shaky breath. ‘Beka, do me a favour.’

* * *

He knocks on Viktor and Yuuri’s hotel room door with three assertive raps, then three more when he gets no immediate response. ‘Oi, Viktor,’ he calls. ‘I need to talk to you, so put some pants on and answer the goddamned door!’

Viktor opens up and peers out. He’s still dressed from dinner. ‘It’s late, Yura,’ he notes. _Important, then._

Yuri looks at Otabek, his heart thundering in his chest and threatening to break out of his ribs. But this is right. It’s time to open up a little, isn’t it?

Otabek nods once. _Face the front lines, soldier. You’re ready to fight._

Yuri takes a deep breath and looks back at Viktor, who's waiting expectantly, patiently, for him to speak.

‘If you’re going to be my coach, you’re going to want to know everything about me.’ It’s not a question. Yuri knows the answer before Viktor nods. ‘Right, then.’ He reaches blindly for Otabek’s fingers and finds them, warm and strong and comforting.

‘I need to tell you something.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A list of all of the songs I used for programs: [Here!](http://zolotayafeya.tumblr.com/post/159645861812/npm-the-programs)
> 
> This may not be the end! I have a list of topics I'd like to approach for future bits within this universe that I'm hoping to start sometime in the future. Maybe. If I can spare the time. Stay tuned :)

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr at [zolotaya.tumblr.com](https://zolotayafeya.tumblr.com). Drop in for a chat! I don't bite, promise :)  
> 


End file.
